


Feels Like Home

by chameleonwrites



Series: A Myriad of Stars [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, it's even gayer, will is a good boyrfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21878707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chameleonwrites/pseuds/chameleonwrites
Summary: Nico's summer has been amazing thanks to Will but he isn't ready to face the following year when it ends.He knows there are going to be a lot of changes this year and that frightens Nico. Luckily, Will is there for him through everything.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Series: A Myriad of Stars [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1349116
Comments: 27
Kudos: 316





	1. Demigods and Parents

Nico di Angelo was pretty sure that he’d had the best summer of his entire life.

Minus almost being destroyed by Gaia, of course, but he was grouping that with the rest of the year which had, quite frankly, been dreadful.

Still, as soon as the impending threat had vanished, Will Solace had stepped into Nico’s life and suddenly, everything seemed to make sense. Nico had found not only a place where he belonged and could be himself, but a person with whom he belonged and could be himself with. As the son of Hades, that in itself was a miracle Nico had never seen coming.

The fact that Will was attractive, funny, caring, utterly charming and the most infuriating demigod Nico had ever met just made everything so much better.

Of course, summer didn’t last forever, though. Nico knew it didn’t and yet he’d somehow hoped it would, causing reality to crash down around him during the last week of the holidays.

“My mom’s picking me up from Camp next week,” Will announced very suddenly one afternoon whilst the two were sitting inside Nico’s cabin, playing with some of Nico’s old mythomagic cards for the sake of nostalgia and secretly because the two of them were huge nerds.

Nico’s eyes snapped up immediately.

“You’re going home?” he asked in a slightly strangled voice. So much for concealing his emotions.

“Not exactly,” Will said. Nico raised an eyebrow at him, wondering what that was supposed to mean.

“Meaning?”

“Well, I go to school but not properly,” Will started to explain, “We need a healer at Camp all the time and now that Lee’s dead, I’m the best healer we’ve got.”

“How does that work, then? I thought school was a full time thing,” Nico asked. He knew he’d been to school in Italy, but the memories weren’t really there. He hadn’t even thought about going to school since; he’d always been too tied up in monsters, Titans, giants or whatever else was attempting to destroy the world.

“It usually is. My mum has a special agreement with the headteacher, though. I go to school for a few weeks each term so that I can collect all the work and then I return to Camp so that no one dies from falling off the lava wall or getting a leg sliced off in Capture the Flag,” Will explained.

“So you won’t be gone for long?” Nico checked. Will chuckled.

“Why, you gonna miss me?” he teased, nudging Nico’s leg with his own. Nico rolled his eyes.

“I was just thinking about how peaceful Camp would be without you. No Jackson bugging me, no Grace bugging me, no you bugging me,” he said wistfully.

“Hey!” Will complained, “we only bug you because we love you. Besides you were totally upset when I said I was going home after summer.”

“Was not,” Nico spluttered.

“Was too,” Will retorted.

“Not.”

“Too.”

“Alright, shut up, of course I was going to miss you,” Nico finally relented, shoving Will, who had decided to lean his body right over Nico’s. It was suddenly dawning on Nico just how much he would miss Will, though.

Even before they’d started dating, Nico had still spent the majority of his time with Will and over the last month or so, the two had practically been inseparable. Now he was going to have to go for weeks without seeing him. Nico already felt suffocated. Never had he expected to become so reliant on one person.

“Ha, that’s pretty gay,” Will smirked in retaliation to Nico pushing him. Nico inhaled deeply.

“I changed my mind, can you leave today?” he deadpanned. Will laughed and flopped down on his back besides Nico on the bed.

“I’m bored of mythomagic,” he stated.

“You get bored easily,” Nico shrugged.

“True, but I wanted to ask you something,” Will replied, looking up at Nico from the bed from what Nico assumed was not a very flattering angle on his behalf.

“Go on, then,” Nico encouraged with an unenthusiastic eye roll to accompany it.

“It’s going to be weird spending time apart after we’ve spent all summer together, so I was wondering if you wanted to come over and stay at mine during the first weekend? My mom will love you, I can sense it, and she’s always happy to let my friends stay over,” Will offered. 

Nico swallowed a lump in his throat. Meeting Will’s mom had not been something he’d ever even considered and being new to the twenty-first century, never mind just dating, made Nico panic a little that he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to act around a mother. 

The only parental figure in his life was Hades and Nico doubted he could just nip down to the Underworld to pay his dad a visit and ask a few questions about his love life. It wasn’t really the father-son relationship they had.

“Don’t worry,” Will jumped in, noticing Nico’s hesitance, “it’s just an offer and I don’t want you to feel like you have to. I know you’ve probably not done anything like that before but just so you know, my mom is lovely. She’s the kindest woman I know. She already knows I’m gay and will be so thrilled to meet you. I can already tell she’s going to love you.”

Nico raised an eyebrow. People didn’t exactly have a habit of ‘loving’ him upon first encounters.

“Really?” Nico asked, surprising even himself at how weak his voice sounded. Will sat up on the bed and placed his hands on Nico’s shoulders, forcing him to look into his dazzling blue eyes.

“I mean it. I’ve never disliked you and people say the two of us are pretty similar. She’s also one of the most stubborn people I know. When I was younger she’d keep me quarantined if I got a slight tickle in my throat so if you think _I’m_ bad, wait ’til you meet her,” Will reassured Nico. He smiled slightly at Will’s anecdote.

“It’s hard to imagine anyone more stubborn than you,” Nico smirked.

“I’m not just Apollo’s good looks and charms, y’know,” Will teased, sending Nico a wink. Nico laughed at the action and allowed his head to fall against Will’s chest.

“I’ll think about it,” Nico agreed. Will wrapped his arms around Nico’s torso and kissed the top of his head.

“Thank you,” he said, “it means a lot to me.”

Nico still felt anxiety bubble up inside of him at the thought of spending a weekend with Will’s mother but after everything Will had done for him, this was the least he could do in return, especially if it meant a lot to Will.

He just wished it didn’t feel like such a big deal to him.

Will had to return to his own cabin before long (ever since it was confirmed that the two were together, the Apollo cabin had taken to threatening Will in order to ensure he returned back each night) and Nico was left to his own thoughts.

He knew how much Will’s mother meant to him. It wasn’t really school that Will was going home to- it was Naomi Solace. He always spoke so highly of her which just made Nico even more anxious. Normally, he didn’t care what people thought of him. The first time he’d realised he cared about what Will thought of him was when he’d begun to realise that he viewed Will as a little more than just ‘that annoying healer’.

Still, he hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to ensure Will actually liked him. Never before had he felt the need to make a dedicated effort to guarantee someone didn‘t dislike him.

It was terrifying. 

Nico also had literally no clue how he was supposed to interact with his boyfriend’s mother. The only adults he ever even spoke to were Chiron, Mr D, Hades and occasionally Persephone if he was in the mood for an argument, all of whom were immortal beings- definitely not mortal mothers.

Feeling Cabin 13 growing gradually stuffier as his panic increased, Nico stood up abruptly and decided he needed to take a walk outside to calm his nerves and get some fresh air. It was still half an hour until curfew, so, luckily, the cleaning Harpies wouldn’t be around to tear his flesh apart just yet.

Instead of wandering to his and Will’s usual spot, Nico continued further down until he was sat by the far edge of the canoe lake where few campers ever seemed to go. Nico himself rarely sat by this side of the lake, despite its proximity to the Hades cabin.

If Nico had been hoping for some brooding time to himself, though, he was severely disappointed as a tall, dark figure appeared from the darkness of the trees and made his way to Nico’s side. Nico had recognised him immediately.

“Father,” he greeted, sounding distinctly unimpressed with Hades’s sudden appearance.

“Hello, son. It’s been a while,” Hades commented. Nico looked at him sternly.

“You closed off the Underworld so I couldn’t enter,” he pointed out. Hades chuckled nervously, a sound that seemed utterly strange coming from the Lord of the Underworld.

“That I did. I apologise. It wasn’t to prevent you or Hazel from entering, I assure,” Hades said awkwardly. Nico let out a sigh.

“What do you want?” he asked. Whilst Nico knew he saw his Dad far more than other demigods saw their Olympian parents, Hades still only tended to appear when he wanted something from him. Either that or he was going to gift him a skeleton chef to go with his skeleton Chauffeur, Jules-Albert. 

“I just wanted to catch up with you, Nico,” Hades said simply. Nico raised an eyebrow.

“That’s unnerving,” he commented. Hades sighed.

“I still can never tell if you’re being sarcastic or not,” he complained. Nico shrugged. He wasn’t entirely sure whether he was or not, himself. 

“Anyway,” Hades continued, “the Apollo sprout.”

Nico’s cheeks flushed, “Wait, this is about _Will_?”

“Oh, that’s his name. I couldn’t remember if it was Bill or Will. Yes. You seem… infatuated with him, correct?” Hades asked. Nico groaned and placed his head in his hands. The last conversation he’d ever wanted to have with his father was about his love life.

“Do you have to talk to me about this?” he asked.

“I’m not allowed to get involved with my son’s personal life?” Hades questioned. Nico nearly willed the ground to open up and swallow him. He was tempted to do it had he not known that Hades would just follow him.

“Fine, yes, I’m happy with him. If you have a problem with it, I don’t care,” he snapped. Hades looked almost taken aback.

“I have no problem. In fact, I’m quite relieved. He isn’t Jackson or Grace and he has a good sense of humour,” Hades said in an almost approving tone. Nico’s father’s words suddenly sunk in. How did Hades know that Will had a sense of humour?

“Have you been _watching_ me?” Nico spluttered. If Hades skin hadn’t still been so deathly pale, Nico would have thought he was going red.

“Not exactly. I just like to check up on you sometimes. I noticed an abnormal amount of laughing so wanted to assure you were okay,” Hades explained. Now it was Nico’s turn to go red.

“Yeah, well, he does have a good sense of humour,” he mumbled. Hades nodded thoughtfully.

“Invite him down for dinner,” Hades suggested, “I’d like to meet him personally.”

“Please don’t threaten my boyfriend,” Nico begged, thinking how strange it was to refer to Will as his boyfriend in front of someone else, for once.

“I would never. I simply want to get to know him better. If the Apollo sprout is important to you, he should be important to me, too,” Hades stated.

“He can’t eat food from the Underworld, you know,” Nico added. 

Hades glared at him, “Do you take me for a fool, Nico? I am well aware of that.”

“Of course, sorry,” Nico apologised, rolling his eyes, “I’ll have to discuss it with him. He- er- might be a little apprehensive about nipping down to the Underworld just for dinner.”

Hades nodded in understanding and if Nico didn’t know better, he would have said Hades almost looked hurt by his comment.

“I hear you’re going to visit his mortal mother,” he finally added after a moment of silence. Nico groaned again.

“Do you listen in to all of our conversations?” he asked, wondering exactly what his father had overheard.

“No. Just that one. I was planning to pay you a visit but noticed you were preoccupied,” he said. Nico flushed and tried not to think about what Hades had overheard or accidentally observed.

“I don’t know if I’m going to visit her or not, though,” Nico explained, “I’m… nervous.”

“Naturally,” Hades nodded, “my own relationship with Demeter has not been ideal over the years since I married Persephone.”

Nico didn’t point out that there may well be a reason for that. He also didn’t point out that Hades was definitely not helping his nerves calm down.

“Right,” Nico stated, “any helpful advice or were you just here to interrogate me?”

“I just wanted to see that you were happy,” Hades said, “I know it isn’t easy being my son. You deserve a good life.”

Nico had had this sort of conversation with his father before. Last time, he’d thought to himself that there was no way he’d ever be truly happy. Now, he was glad to feel like his younger self had been wrong. Life felt pretty great for Nico right now. 

“Thanks,” Nico said, allowing a genuine smile to cross his face, “you don’t need to worry. Will does make me happy.”

It felt weird to say so to his dad, but it was the truth.

“I can tell,” Hades nodded in response, “I think the Harpies are coming. I should probably let you get back to your cabin.”

Nico nodded and got to his feet again. Hades had already turned around and was walking away back into the darkness.

“Dad,” Nico blurted out on impulse, before his father walked away. Hades turned around quite suddenly. It was the first time Nico had referred to him as anything other than ‘father’ or ‘Hades’. “Thank you for checking up on me,” Nico finished.

Hades looked at him and gave a warm smile, something that looked so foreign on his usually cold and stern face.

With that, Hades vanished into the darkness and Nico was left alone again to clamber back up to his cabin before the cleaning Harpies swooped in to eat him for their dinner.

He’d made his mind up about what he was going to do- he was going to visit Will’s mom. Family was important, after all.

* * *

The last day of summer arrived before Nico was prepared and there was a very melancholic feel around Camp. Whilst some campers never went to school, instead staying on at Camp year round as Nico planned on doing, there were an awful lot of people leaving for the year, some of them for good. 

Percy and Annabeth were the first to say goodbye to Nico.

“We’re going to go to college in New Rome,” Annabeth explained to Nico when they caught him wandering past the big house, “but Percy needs to pass his SATs first.”

“It’s going to be a painful year of studying,” Percy added with a grin. Nico huffed a laugh. He couldn’t remember what going to school was like but from what he’d heard, studying was not a fun activity.

“Yeah, I don’t envy you,” Nico said. Percy shrugged.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back to visit soon. Probably sooner than I want, knowing how things tend to go at this place. I don’t doubt that the gods will have some new problem that needs fixing soon,” he added. 

“Don’t you miss the days when you were told not to go on a quest and snuck your way onto it anyway?” Annabeth asked with a nostalgic sigh.

“I would gladly go back and smack my younger self,” Percy laughed. Nico could sympathise with that.

“At least you didn’t go crazy and start raising dead spirits,” Nico pointed out. Percy laughed harder.

“True, true,” he said and before the three of them knew it, they were laughing about all the ridiculous trouble and near death experiences they’d had over the years. 

Nico had never considered using humour as a coping mechanism, considering laughing was something he rarely found himself doing, but as he found himself recounting tales with Percy and Annabeth, he realised the memories didn’t hold quite as much sting as they usually did. Nico absent-mindedly wondered if that had been partly due to Will’s influence on him.

“Remember the time I gatecrashed my own funeral?” Percy asked Annabeth. She burst into laughter again.

“I was about to go saying all this nice stuff about him and then he just wanders over like it’s no big deal,” Annabeth said. 

“Oh, Nico, what about that time you came over to my house on my birthday to tell me to take a swim in the Styx but got distracted by cake,” Percy reminded him.

“What was I _thinking_?” Nico asked with a laugh, “at least the cake was good.”

“Sally’s blue food is the best,” Annabeth agreed as Percy wrapped an arm around both her and Nico, squeezing them into a group hug. Nico reluctantly complied. He didn’t mind it anywhere near as much as he pretended to.

“I’m gonna miss you a lot, Nico. You’d better visit us in New Rome, too,” Percy said, “don’t pretend you don’t know me this time!”

Nico smiled sheepishly, “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Hopefully this time you won’t be losing your memory,” Annabeth scolded as she gently smacked him on the arm.

“I never forgot you, Wise Girl,” Percy said fondly and Nico averted his eyes, already knowing what was about to happen. He scanned the inside of the Big House as he looked away, peering into the infirmary to see if he could spot Will. Will hadn’t said goodbye, yet, so Nico hoped he didn’t plan on leaving without doing so.

Percy and Annabeth didn’t kiss for long due to Nico’s presence, which he was grateful for. He was also glad to notice that he didn’t feel any twinge of jealousy towards Annabeth anymore. Percy was just a normal guy to him now. A friend, even.

“I really am sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you over the years,” Nico apologised. Percy shrugged.

“Don’t sweat it. I’ve caused you trouble, too. Besides, it’s what friends are for,” he grinned, using his knuckle to mess up Nico’s hair as Nico attempted to bat his hand away. Annabeth laughed.

“Look after everyone at Camp for us, Nico,” Annabeth smiled, “I trust you to make sure everything stays orderly.”

“As orderly as Camp Halfblood can get,” Nico pointed out as an appropriately timed fight broke out behind them on the volleyball court between an Ares and an Aphrodite kid. 

“Don’t go breaking Will’s heart,” Percy added with a wink. Nico rolled his eyes and flushed red.

“Shut up,” he complained, “I will miss you guys, though. Camp will feel strange without you here.”

Percy and Annabeth smiled so widely at Nico’s admission that he almost regretted it. He regretted it even more when the two engulfed him in another huge hug.

“Goodbye until whenever we next see you, then,” Percy said. Nico nodded.

“Enjoy college,” he greeted. Annabeth smiled.

“Oh, he’s going to love it,” she smirked a little evilly. Nico chuckled and gave them one last wave as the two made their way over to the top of Halfblood Hill where they would undoubtedly be swamped with even more Campers wanting to say goodbye.

Camp really was going to be weird without Percy and Annabeth there. Nico had never properly stayed without them there since the time he sent Percy off on the quest his sister died on. All of that felt like aeons ago to him, now.

“It doesn’t seem real, does it?” a familiar voice came from behind Nico. Will had snuck up on him and wrapped his arms around Nico’s waist which he’d usually complain about in such open view of all the camp, but it was Will’s last day before he went home for a while and his arms were warm. It wasn’t because Nico actually liked when Will held him like this, or anything.

“Percy and Annabeth have just always… been around,” Nico agreed, “I guess I can visit them but it just feels like they’re going away.”

“Jason and Piper are going to New Rome for the year, too, aren’t they?” Will asked. Nico nodded, hoping Will could feel the movement of his head against his chest.

“And you’re gonna be gone. Camp’s going to feel pretty lonely,” Nico pointed out. Will released his arms around Nico and grabbed his shoulders instead, turning him around to face him. His face didn’t look mad but Nico could sense a certain anger behind his eyes.

“That doesn’t give you an excuse to shadow travel off anywhere you like,” Will said, “you’d better still be here when I return each holiday.”

Nico rolled his eyes, “I know, I’ll stay here, I promise. I might go and visit Hazel once or twice but other than that-“

“Good,” Will interrupted him with a sigh of relief, “I think you have some visitors that want to talk to you, though.”

Nico turned around to see where Will was looking. Piper and Jason were stood at the other side of the Big House, observing the scene at a distance. Nico could already tell the two had been spying on them and sent a premature glare in their direction.

“Go on, I’ll wait here,” Will promised with a smirk. Nico nodded at him and made his way over to them.

“So,” Jason started, “this is it for a year.”

“Don’t say that,” Piper accused, “you can still come and visit us. Reyna, Hazel and Frank would want you to visit, too.”

“I know,” Nico agreed, “I will do. I hope you both have a good year.”

“I’ll miss you, Nico. Stay safe at camp. We’re only an Iris message away,” Jason reminded him. Nico nodded and felt the beginnings of tears prickling his eyes. He quickly blinked them away but Piper was doing nothing to hide her tears.

“Aww, Neeks,” she sobbed and then threw her arms around him. Nico almost fell back from the impact but slowly embraced Piper back if slightly awkwardly.

“Don’t call me that,” Nico complained but there was no annoyance in his tone. Jason sniffed loudly and Nico glanced over Piper’s shoulder to notice that Jason was getting teary eyed, too. Nico lifted one of his arms and Jason took the invitation, enveloping Nico in a hug as well. 

As both Piper and Jason were taller than him, he found it difficult to breathe pretty quickly and had to stretch his neck to free his mouth.

“Guys, you’re kind of crushing me,” he spluttered. Jason and Piper released him immediately with apologies rolling off their tongues.

“We will really miss you,” Piper said. 

“Yeah,” Jason added, “you’ve changed a lot in just the short space of time we’ve known you. I’m really glad.”

“Well, I think you know who to blame for that,” Nico smirked, throwing a look over his shoulder at where Will, as promised, was still standing.

“Take good care of him,” Piper said with a wink, “have you made up your mind yet?”

Nico took a deep breath in and nodded.

“I know what I need to do,” he said, “and Jason, Will may have helped me but you were the catalyst that set the reaction off. You accepted me when I felt like no one could and I- just- thank you,” Nico managed to stammer out.

Jason looked like he was going to cry again and, before Nico knew it, he had been enveloped in yet another hug. Feeling left out, Piper joined in again, squeezing the two boys tightly.

“You really need to stop trying to kill me,” Nico gasped for breath, “There are still plenty of monsters left to do that.”

Piper and Jason laughed as they relented their tight grip.

“Don’t die whilst we’re gone,” Piper instructed. Nico gave her a wry smile.

“I’ll try not to. Make sure Jason doesn’t get himself killed, too,” Nico said.

“I can look after myself!” Jason complained. Piper laughed and Nico gave a snort.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about,” he said dryly. Jason rolled his eyes and pouted before taking Piper’s hand.

“We’d better go and say our goodbyes to Percy and Annabeth before we take off,” Jason said, “we’ll see you soon, Nico.”

Nico lifted a hand in a half hearted wave.

“Yeah, I’ll see you.”

And with that, he departed and made his way back up the hill to Will. This was his next goodbye and he knew this one would be the hardest, even if he’d only be spending a short time away. Luckily, he had until that evening. Whilst most campers left in the afternoon, Will’s mom worked a day shift at the hospital so could only pick him up later on in the day.

“You okay?” Will asked with a concerned look as Nico approached. Nico wiped away any stray tears that may have been remaining at the corner of his eyes.

“Yeah,” he lied, “just going to miss everyone.”

“Aw, you’re such a softy,” Will teased, hugging Nico from the side, “help me clear up in the infirmary before I leave? It needs to pass inspection.”

“You’re the one inspecting it, you nerd,” Nico complained with an eye roll. His complaints ended when Will pecked his cheek and grabbed his hand, pulling Nico inside the Big House.

As soon as they stepped inside, Will switched straight over into Doctor mode, something Nico was pretty used to by now.

“I need all the thermometers back in the tub on the second shelf up and bring me some latex gloves whilst you’re there- someone’s left medical waste on the table,” Will instructed. Nico nodded and turned around to go to the back before adding,

“Is that a shelf I can actually reach this time?” recalling an incident only a week or so ago. 

Will raised his eyebrow in response as he turned around with stethoscopes in his hand.

“I doubt you’d complain much if it wasn’t,” he said pointedly. Nico blushed and muttered a quiet ‘Shut up’ before marching into the back. 

Nico was pretty sure Will hadn’t been the last person in here because the boxes were a mess. Will was such a perfectionist when it came to organising the infirmary that Nico knew he’d probably need medical attention himself if he came in and saw the state it had been left in.

With a sigh, Nico shoved the thermometers in the box on the second shelf and started work sorting through the other boxes, attempting to return everything to their correct place.

Nico hadn’t remembered about bringing Will the gloves until a pair of hands tickled his waist and caused him to make an embarrassingly high pitched squeal, dropping the packs of gauze he was holding.

“Sorry,” Will chuckled quietly in Nico’s ear, sending a shiver down Nico’s spine, “what’s taking so long?”

Nico picked up the gauze and stood on his tiptoes to put it back in the box before turning around to face Will. 

The son of Apollo was stood closer than Nico had realised and his hands were still hovering over Nico’s waist, ready to pull him even closer. Nico’s heart caught in his throat as he felt his breath catch. Will still had an uncanny knack of taking his breath away. It was very infuriating.

“It- messy- decided to sort it,” Nico said intelligently. If he’d been hoping to disguise from Will how much his sudden presence and closeness had affected him, he was doing a pretty lousy job.

“What?” Will asked, having not understood Nico, not surprisingly. Nico took a breath in and tried to remember how to compose comprehensible sentences as he looked up at Will’s blue eyes.

“Someone messed everything up. I was trying to sort it out again because I know you don’t like it disorganised,” Nico finally managed to say without sounding completely stupid. 

Will looked down at Nico with a soft smile on his face. Nico was glad that it seemed he’d actually done the right thing.

“Thank you,” Will said quietly, leaning down so that his nose bumped Nico’s gently. Nico’s breath was taken away once again as Will’s hands tightened around his waist. He wondered if there was such thing as dying from spending too long too close to your boyfriend. Nico at least hoped his father would take pity and resurrect him if that did happen.

After what felt like way too long, Will finally tilted his head and captured Nico’s lips. Letting out a sigh, Nico reached up, wound a hand in Will’s hair and pulled the blond against him, hungrily. Will was far too much of a tease and Nico wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

Will didn’t seem to be complaining as Nico kissed him back harder, though, instead letting his hands move from Nico’s waist to his back, one of them slipping underneath Nico’s black t-shirt and tracing the bare skin on his spine. Nico shivered at the touch, despite Will’s hands being as warm as always. Will was permanently warm. Nico suspected it was because he was Apollo’s son but he didn’t really care- not when Will’s mouth was on his.

Nico pulled back to take a breath for a second but Will had other ideas, chasing Nico’s mouth with his own and pressing their bodies together again. Nico felt his back touch the shelves behind him and he removed his hands from Will’s hair to place them on the shelves and push the two of them off. He hadn’t just spent all that time organising them for Will to ruin it, no matter what his tongue was doing as it slid into Nico’s mouth and elicited a gasp from him.

“Don’t ruin my tidying,” Nico murmured against Will’s lips.

“Nico, shut up and let me kiss you, I don’t care about the tidying,” Will muttered in response, not giving Nico a chance to respond further as he kissed Nico again, the hot press of his lips making Nico finally give in and decide that the shelves really didn’t matter all that much.

He allowed Will to push him back against them this time as the taller boy’s tongue returned to his mouth. Whilst Nico did like to be the one leading the kiss, drawing small noises out of Will and leaving him a blushing mess, he definitely was not about to complain if Will wanted to push him up against a wall and kiss him senseless.

“Nico,” Will moaned lightly, the sound of his name on Will’s lips causing blood to rush straight to Nico’s cheeks. Nico just pulled Will’s lips back to his.

The sudden sound of a horn caused Nico and Will to jump apart in shock, Nico’s head hitting against the shelf above him and Will’s nose bumping into his a little harder than anticipated.

“Ow,” Nico said, not entirely sure his mouth was capable of forming any more than a sound at that moment anyway.

“I guess it’s time for dinner,” Will said breathlessly, “I can’t believe I didn’t manage to clean the infirmary.”

Nico rolled his eyes at Will’s pout.

“Don’t blame me, I was trying to help. Besides, you’re the inspector so it doesn’t matter,” he shrugged. Will scoffed.

“It’s basic patient hygiene, di Angelo,” he said, sounding scandalised, “and don’t feign innocence, you were being too distracting.”

“I was literally just tidying a cupboard,” Nico pointed out.

“Exactly,” Will teased, draping an arm over Nico’s shoulder as they made their way out of the Big House and to the mess hall, “distracting.”

Nico blushed and rolled his eyes.

“Catch me after dinner so I can say goodbye,” Will ordered. Nico nodded in agreement.

“Of course I will,” he said. Will gave his shoulder one last squeeze before releasing Nico and going over to the Apollo cabin, now consisting of only Kayla, Austin and Will.

Nico sat himself down at the Big Three table that was feeling even more vacant. Percy and Jason had both left, leaving Nico alone. He hated sitting alone to eat. He never would have admitted it to Percy and Jason but it did really help having them there, even if he’d been against it when they’d first suggested the idea.

When Nico sat alone to eat, it brought back memories. Memories of buying Happy Meals in desperate attempts to speak to his sister. Memories of sitting trapped in a jar, surviving only off pomegranate seeds and thinking that no one was coming to save him- he would die alone.

They weren’t exactly memories Nico wanted to dwell on, especially now that his life was looking up for once, but the scars ran deep and no amount of happiness would ever truly dispel the nightmares and feelings of hopelessness that occasionally threatened to overcome Nico.

Absent-mindedly, Nico wondered if it would be at all possible for him to convince Chiron that he needed to sit with other people to stop his powers from playing up. Maybe Chiron would let him sit with Will if the son of Apollo played his ‘I’m a doctor’ card.

For a second, Nico was tempted to raise skeletons right there and then but thought better of it. Will would be leaving Camp in about an hour, anyway.

Distracted from his own memories with thoughts of Will, Nico happily bit into his pepperoni pizza.

* * *

Despite Will’s promise that he would say goodbye to Nico before he left, Nico spotted the son of Apollo leaving his cabin with a packed bag and heading in the direction of Halfblood Hill- not in the direction of the Hades cabin.

Luckily, Nico had been paying attention, so, muttering to himself in aggravation, Nico shrugged on his aviator jacket to guard against the cool evening breeze and stormed out of his cabin, not caring that the door slammed shut behind him.

Due to Will’s naturally larger strides (curse his long legs), Nico had to jog to catch up and finally reached him just as he arrived at the top of the hill.

“Going somewhere?” Nico asked pointedly. Will jumped at the sound of his voice.

“Ah, Nico!” he gasped, “uh, sorry, I was going to come and say goodbye but, well-“ Will broke off with a shrug and Nico raised an eyebrow at him. With a glance down the hill, he spotted a woman with curly brown hair, blue eyes as clear as Will’s. Her face was smattered with freckles and she wore a smile Nico would recognise anywhere. She was Naomi Solace- unmistakably Will’s mother.

“Oh,” Nico muttered, drawing his attention back to Will. He’d felt a hint of panic rise up inside him at the sight of Naomi accompanied with the disappointment that Will hadn’t intended to say goodbye to him. Nico was going to be spending a weekend with just her and Will way sooner than he was prepared for.

A thought suddenly hit Nico as to why Will hadn’t been going to say goodbye and it was completely and utterly Nico’s fault.

“Oh!” Nico repeated in realisation as he grabbed Will’s arms, “Will, I forgot to tell you- I made up my mind. I want to visit you at the weekend. I mean, if the offer still stands.”

Will’s eyes lit up immediately.

“Why didn’t you just say so, you idiot?” he asked and before Nico could even respond, Will dropped his bags and picked Nico up, spinning him round. Nico had to try hard not to shriek in shock as he grabbed Will’s shoulders to steady himself.

Still laughing, Will placed him back on the ground and hugged him.

“Of course the offer still stands,” Will promised, “do you want to meet my mom now? She’s heard a lot about you through Iris messages.”

Nico didn’t even think before he answered, “Yeah, sure!”, completely forgetting to panic. 

Will grinned and grabbed Nico’s hand, picking up his bags again and pulling Nico down the hill with him. They were through the magical Mist barrier before Nico knew it and he was faced with the most daunting task of his entire life: talking to Will’s mother.

“Will!” Naomi Solace squealed as soon as the two demigods stumbled past the magical barrier. Nico didn’t even complain when Will released his hand so he could engulf his mother in a huge hug.

He was easily taller than her, resting his head on top of hers as he hugged her. Nico guessed she was about the same height as he was.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she said, “you haven’t been overworking yourself, I hope. If you have a single blister on your hand from over-healing then I swear-“

Whatever Naomi Solace had intended to say next was forgotten as she pulled her son in for another hug. Nico couldn’t help but smile slightly as he observed the scene, despite the panic still rising inside him. At least Will would be in good hands away from camp; Nico doubted he needed to worry too much about Will overexerting himself.

Still, if there was a monster-

Nico shook the thought out of his head quickly. Will had always been fine in previous years. He was going to be fine now. His scent wasn’t as strong as Nico’s, Percy’s or Jason’s anyway- he wasn’t a son of the Big Three.

“Mom,” Will whined in complaint, pushing her away, “I’m fine, honestly.”

Despite his complaints, Nico knew how much Will had actually missed his mother. He never shut up about it.

Just then, Naomi happened to look up, over Will’s shoulder, and her eyes connected with Nico’s. He felt his heart rate immediately pick up in fear. She was going to hate him already.

“Will, I think there’s someone you might be forgetting to introduce me to,” Naomi said, raising an eyebrow at her son expectantly in a way Will so often did to Nico whenever he forgot to look after a wound or help out in the hospital. Nico was already starting to realise exactly why Apollo had been so taken with her. She had a lot of similarities to her son.

“Oh!” Will seemed to realise as his eyes shone. He grinned and walked over to Nico again, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards his mother. Nico allowed himself to be pulled and stood there in shock. “Mom, this is Nico.”

“So you’re the guy Will won’t shut up about when he Iris messages me,” Naomi Solace said with a sly smile. Nico felt his cheeks heat up. He was supposed to say something now.

“Um,” Nico started, “it’s nice to meet you. Will talks about you a lot, too.”

“Oh, does he?” Naomi Solace asked, turning to Will.

“Pfft, as if,” Will pretended, but his mom just tackled him in another hug.

“You big softie,” she teased, “you do love your old mom after all.”

“Mom, stop, you’re embarrassing me in front of Nico,” Will complained, attempting to flatten his hair again when his mom released him. Nico fought the urge to run his fingers through it. Will’s mother was _right there_.

“It really is lovely to meet you, though, Nico. I’m really glad Will’s found someone as good to him as you,” Naomi turned to Nico again, still smiling.

“ _Good_ to me?” Will huffed. Nico elbowed him.

“Thank you, Miss Solace,” he said, “I do my best to keep him in check.”

“Please, just call me Naomi. Or mom if you want- anything’s fine by me!” Naomi said. Nico thought he would have felt a little bit awkward calling her ‘mom’ but it didn’t seem like she completely hated him, so that was a good thing at least. “I don’t know how you manage- he really is a nightmare.”

“Trust me, I know,” Nico smirked, surprised at how easily he was managing to have a conversation. He hadn’t messed up. He could do this.

Will was apparently not as pleased with his achievement.

“Nico! Mom! I didn’t introduce you to each other so you could gang up against me,” he complained.

“You should have expected this, really,” Nico pointed out.

“Honestly, it’s like he doesn’t even know us,” Naomi shook her head in offence.

“Mom!” Will whined.

“Sorry, did you hear something, Nico?” she asked in a sly tone.

“Nothing at all,” Nico agreed with a shake of his head.

“I changed my mind, you’re uninvited this weekend,” Will huffed.

“You agreed to come?” Naomi asked suddenly, turning to Nico excitedly. Nico had never seen anyone look so glad at the news that he was going to be somewhere.

“Oh, um, I-I’d like to if you don’t mind,” Nico stuttered. Naomi grinned.

“Of course I don’t mind! The more, the merrier. I’m sure you’ll help me wind up Will, too,” she said.

“I wouldn’t ever pass up the opportunity,” Nico promised. The tenseness of first meeting Naomi Solace was slowly easing away and he felt his shoulders relaxing. He wondered what he’d ever been so worried about. Naomi was lovely and she shone just as brightly as her son. Maybe Will hadn’t received his sunny disposition from his father, after all.

“Right, I’m leaving,” Will huffed, folding his arms stubbornly. Nico nudged him with his hip.

“So I really don’t get a goodbye?” he asked.

“Will, were you really about to leave without even saying goodbye to Nico?” Naomi asked in shock.

“I wasn- no- I just-“ Will stammered.

“Yes,” Nico interjected. Naomi looked at him sternly.

“It’s a good job your boyfriend actually cares about saying goodbye to you, then, isn’t it?” she pointed out. Nico’s cheeks flushed at the words. It felt weird for Will’s own mother to say that. Weird in a not entirely unpleasant way. “Go on, I’ll wait in the car and I promise I won’t look.”

“Mom!” Will protested, “that means you totally will.”

Naomi shrugged her shoulders and took Will’s bag, taking them back to her blue Honda.

“So, I’ll see you this weekend,” Nico said after a moment’s silence. Will smiled at him.

“Thank you. I know this isn’t easy for you but you’ve already done such a good job just talking to her. She really likes you,” Will said.

“All I’ve done is insult you,” Nico muttered. Will laughed and put his hand on Nico’s upper arm.

“I know, but you’ve made an effort to find something in common with her and talk about it. You think you’re bad at talking to people but you just did a really good job of it,” he explained. Nico chewed his lower lip as he considered Will’s words. He hadn’t even been thinking about it like that.

“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded, “but I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been there.”

“I’ll always be here if you need me,” Will promised in a soft voice, pulling Nico even closer to him.

“Your mom is watching,” Nico reminded Will although he wasn’t really sure he minded, Will’s closeness sending a frenzy of incoherent thoughts scattering around his brain.

“I don’t care,” Will said, his breath dusting over Nico’s lips. Nico didn’t care either as he closed the distance between them, raising himself onto his tiptoes to plant a gentle kiss on Will’s lips.

Will pulled away far sooner than Nico would have liked, but it was still enough to leave his head feeling fuzzy and his lips tingling with warmth.

“Goodbye,” Will said.

“Goodbye,” Nico repeated, releasing Will’s top from where he’d grabbed hold of it to kiss him. Will smiled softly as he trailed his hand along Nico’s arm, releasing it, before walking away towards where Naomi Solace was waiting for him in the car. Nico smiled and waved as he watched Will go before turning around and heading back through the magical border and up Halfblood Hill.

He only had to wait until weekend.


	2. Demigods and Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: bad dream, mentions of Tartarus, panic attack depiction
> 
> There's a new character in this chapter, too! I hope you like her

Nico had originally intended to ask Chiron for permission to leave Camp at the weekend. That was until Chiron forced all of them to work ten times harder on rebuilding everything and fulfilling Jason’s promise to Kymopoleia now that there were only a few campers left.

Camp felt surprisingly empty and yet Nico was surprised to find that he didn’t feel all that lonely.

Cecil would hang out with Nico during the day and Nico would still find himself dropping into the infirmary to chat to Austin and Kayla now that he’d grown quite close to Will’s siblings. If he couldn’t sleep, Nico often wandered over to the Hypnos cabin to wake Clovis up to chat, too, and whenever he wasn’t hanging out with other people, Nico was summoning hoards of skeletons to assist with the building work.

Every time Nico summoned a new wave of skeletons, he smirked slightly, knowing Will would be chastising him for overusing his powers and force him to sit in the Hospital Wing for the next few hours. Really, Nico knew it was just another excuse to force him to help Will with his job. And, of course, to spend more time together.

Still, Nico was beginning to wish they hadn’t spent quite so much time together before the end of summer. Every night, when he finally got to sleep, Nico dreamt of warm arms wrapped around him, the smell of summer fruits and sunshine and the feeling of soft blond hair tickling his nose.

When he woke up, he had to remind himself that Will wasn’t right there, after all. It made Nico feel empty.

Of course, once he got himself out of bed and started about his daily business, sword fighting, climbing the climbing wall without being doused in lava, taking Mrs O’Leary for walks and countless other things, Nico managed to push the feeling of emptiness out. There was still no denying that he really missed Will, though.

Luckily, weekend really wasn’t that far away. Will had left Nico with his address and so Nico only had to pack a bag with some spare clothes and shadow travel to Will’s. Friday night arrived soon and Nico still hadn’t mentioned to Chiron that he was leaving for the weekend. 

In fact, he was completely trusting that Cecil would tell Chiron where he was and that he wouldn’t be assumed dead and return to find his cabin ransacked. In hindsight, Nico thought that perhaps he should have entrusted someone like Austin rather than the son of Hermes.

Nico didn’t have time to dwell on it too much, though. He was far too excited to finally see Will again.

In fact, he was that excited that when he melted into the shadows, he reappeared in a tree suspended at least ten feet above the ground.

“Oh shoot,” Nico muttered to himself before he fell through the branches and landed in a back garden he severely hoped was actually Will’s.

“Nico?” a luckily familiar voice called out. Nico sat up and massaged his head just as a door burst open and his vision was filled with tanned skin, blond hair and a mass of freckles.

“Did you just shadow travel into my tree, you imbecile?” Will asked impatiently. Nico’s vision was going blurry but he could still just about make out Will’s face. He grinned and reached up to touch it.

“Hey, Will,” he said woozily before passing out.

* * *

When Nico next opened his eyes, he was led on a settee inside someone’s living room. He was pretty sure he didn’t recognise it and wondered how exactly he’d managed to find himself inside it. Maybe a monster had somehow lured him in.

Suddenly panicked, Nico jolted upright and reached for his sword. His hand returned empty. The monster had taken his weapon.

“Woah, Nico, relax, are you feeling okay?” 

Oh. He remembered now. He was at Will’s house.

Will was lounging in a single seat just across from where Nico was led but he’d jumped to his feet to prevent Nico from attempting to slice up his sofa with his non existent sword. The first thing Nico noticed was that Will wasn’t wearing camp clothes, instead sporting a green plaid shirt, opened over what Nico assumed was the t-shirt of a band, paired with slim blue jeans. He looked good. Really good.

“Yeah, sorry. I forgot where I was and panicked,” Nico explained embarrassedly. Will chuckled and came over to sit next to Nico on the settee. Nico moved his legs out of the way but Will insistently moved them back.

“You’re not going anywhere, yet. You banged your head pretty hard on the fall and you were weak from shadow travelling, anyway. Have you been overusing your powers again?” Will scolded. Nico rolled his eyes.

“No,” he lied. In fact, he’d already summoned at least fifty undead builders that afternoon and the shadow travel all the way across New York definitely hadn’t helped.

“I’m not an idiot, y’know. I can tell you’re lying. What were you even doing?” Will asked, shaking his head. Nico rolled his eyes. He should have known he could never get away with anything when Will was around.

“Chiron wanted me to raise the dead to help with building,” Nico explained.

“Chiron is going to get a scalpel shoved where the sun don’t shine if he makes you use your powers too much again,” Will growled in annoyance. Nico couldn’t help but laugh. He’d missed Will so much.

“I’ve missed hearing that laugh a lot,” Will sighed, turning his head in to face Nico.

“I’ve missed you a lot,” Nico added. He hadn’t necessarily intended to be so honest but the smile it put on Will’s face was completely worth it.

“Good,” Will murmured and he leaned his face in closer to Nico’s. Nico felt his heart rate increase. He hadn’t kissed Will all week. He hadn’t realised how much he missed the taste of Will’s lips on his- the comfort of having him right there under his hands with no chance of anything bad happening.

“Will? Nico? Did I hear your voices?” a female voice called out, causing Will and Nico to spring apart from each other as if they’d been electrocuted.

“Oh, yeah, Nico just woke up, Mom,” Will called back. Nico released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He didn’t think he would have been able to cope with the shame of falling into the Solace’s tree, passing out and waking up on their settee and then being found making out with Will by his own mother.

Nico was at least relieved that he had met Naomi Solace before arriving here. Otherwise, he definitely would have been immediately Shadow Travelling out of the house. He would take monsters over mothers any day.

“Nico,” Naomi’s grinning face peered around the corner of the room, “how are you feeling? I made sure to give you a quick check over and Will explained your Shadow Travel to me. He’s healed the injury on your head and found some ambrosia to stop you from fading.”

“Oh,” Nico said weakly, “thank you.”

“I warned you,” Will muttered quietly under his breath so only Nico could hear. Nico let out a huff of laughter. Will had indeed informed him that his mother was very concerned over health, being a medic herself. 

“What are you muttering about, William?” Naomi asked sternly, placing her hands on her hip. Nico let out another laugh.

“I’ve never heard anyone call you William before,” he smirked.

“What, you didn’t think my name was just Will, did you?” Will asked with a grin. Nico rolled his eyes.

“Of course not,” he said, “no one ever calls you William, though. Not even Chiron.”

Will shrugged, “I’m pretty sure it’s just my mom and teachers that use it.”

“Generally when he’s in trouble,” Naomi noted. Nico realised she was wearing an apron and wondered if she’d been cooking. That’s when he realised that he had no idea what time of the day it was and how long he’d been passed out for.

“Which is pretty frequently, I imagine,” Nico added cheekily as his eyes scanned the room looking for a clock. He found one on the far end of the living room, sat among a bunch of photos- most of a much younger looking Will, usually grinning and sometimes stood next to his mother, varying in height drastically from photo to photo.

Nico couldn’t help himself from smiling at them. It felt strange to see pictures of Will from before he’d even arrived at Camp Halfblood and known who he was. Nico did get a weird feeling inside him as he realised he didn’t have a single photo from when he was a child. After all, he’d grown up in a completely different time to Will had.

Nico wondered if anyone had any photos of him anywhere at all. When everyone that knew him was dead and gone, would there be anything at all to remember him by?

Nico’s spiralling train of thought was luckily interrupted when Naomi Solace followed his gaze.

“Oh, if you want to see even more embarrassing photos of Will, I have a whole book of baby photos,” she said, her eyes sparkling mischievously.

“Mom, that’s the one thing I told you to absolutely not do!” Will complained. Naomi shrugged her shoulders and ran out of the room.

“So that’s where you get your inability to follow orders from,” Nico pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, shut up, you,” Will said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Gods, Nico really wanted to kiss him.

“What were you thinking when you were looking at the photos?” Will asked suddenly, drawing Nico’s attention away from his mouth and up to his solemn blue eyes.

“Oh, nothing much,” Nico shrugged. Will raised an unconvinced eyebrow.

“That’s a lie. I saw your face fall. Is everything alright?” he asked. Nico really wished Will didn’t know him so well, sometimes. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Nico continued to lie just as they heard the sound of the returning footsteps of Naomi Solace. Will flashed Nico a concerned look that unmistakable read, ‘we’ll have this conversation later’. 

Nico knew Will was a firm believer that a relationship required communication and so far, it had always worked. However, Nico also knew that he had a lot of issues, some very inbuilt that had plagued him for years. He didn’t want to burden Will, the kindhearted sunshine boy he was, with all of that. How was he ever supposed to help Will if he himself was a mess?

Luckily Nico didn’t even need to begin explaining any of that out loud, because Naomi came back into the room.

“Will’s going to kill me for this,” she grinned at Nico, “would you like a warm drink whilst we chat? Then the two of you need to get some sleep before tomorrow.”

“What time is it?” Nico finally asked.

“It’s nearly ten o’clock. You only passed out for a couple of hours,” Will added helpfully. Nico rolled his eyes.

“Wow, thanks,” he muttered, “could I have a hot chocolate, please?” Nico added to Naomi.

“Of course! Will, go put the kettle on,” she ordered in response. Will huffed and stood up, immediately leaving Nico’s side feeling cold.

“Yes, Mother,” he sighed dramatically, walking out of the room. Nico tried not to feel too awkward about being left alone with Naomi.

“Will was a really chubby baby,” Naomi began, opening the album to show Nico the first few photos. The Naomi holding the baby had dyed red and straightened hair, completely different to the soft brown curls she sported now. Nico vaguely remembered Will mentioning that his mom had been an alt country rock singer when she’d met Apollo and that it’d been Will’s own affiliation with healing that had sparked her interest in a medical career. The photos themselves were pretty adorable as far as Nico’s knowledge of baby photos went. Will had a tuft of blond hair that only grew in length from each photo to the next.

“He’s always had freckles,” Nico noted, not realising he’d said it out loud until Naomi looked at him with a sparkle in her eye. He flushed red as he turned the page, hoping to distract her.

“This was Will in elementary school. He loved to play tennis back then. It’s a shame they don’t have any tennis courts at Camp,” Naomi sighed wistfully.

“We have volleyball,” Nico added, “but that’s about the only non-life-threatening sport.”

Nico wasn’t entirely sure how accurate his statement was. To consider any normal event as ‘non-life-threatening’ at Camp Halfblood, you clearly hadn’t participated with the Ares or Athena cabin.

“Maybe you two can go to the park tomorrow and play on the courts,” Naomi suggested. Nico tried not to let his panic be visible. He hadn’t thought of the possibility that he’d have to leave Will’s home and spend the day in the mortal world. 

Nico had pretty much always spent his time in the demigod world ever since the age of eleven. Even prior to that, he’d been trapped in the Lotus Casino which whilst he hadn’t realised it at the time, was also not exactly a mortal attraction. He’d forgotten that he wasn’t just behind the times in which year he’d been born in but also in how to act in pretty much any social situation.

“I don’t know how to play tennis,” Nico finally said, realising he’d been a bit too quiet for too long. Naomi merely smiled kindly at Nico and he suspected she had sensed his panic, after all.

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to go. Will told me you weren’t actually born in this era. I imagine it must be pretty daunting leaving Camp and having to spend time in the mortal world,” she said. 

“Oh, uh, yeah. It is a bit,” Nico mumbled. He hadn’t expected Naomi to have known that. For some reason, it made him feel a bit more relaxed.

“Two hot chocolates and a tea,” Will’s cheerful voice rang out as he reentered the room, balancing three mugs precariously. Nico automatically jumped to his feet to help, used to seeing Will struggle holding so many things at once in the Infirmary.

“Thanks, Will. Come and join us, we’ve not even made it to the worst photos, yet,” Naomi grinned, flashing a wink to Nico. Nico smiled appreciatively. He knew it was her way of saying she wouldn’t mention anything to Will about his small panic.

“This is the worst,” Will complained although he didn’t seem too hesitant to jump back onto the sofa and throw his arm over Nico’s shoulders as Naomi flicked through the photo album, explaining all the photos of Will to Nico.

Nico allowed himself to relax back into Will’s hold as the panic gradually released its tight grip on his ribcage. With Will’s familiar warmth pressed against him, it was just that bit easier for Nico to breathe again.

“I don’t know about you boys, but I’m getting tired and I have work tomorrow,” Naomi finally announced after a good half hour of laughing over Will’s photos, “Nico, we’ve set up a bed for you in Will’s room. Will can show you the way.”

“Thank you,” Nico said gratefully. Naomi got to her feet and threw her arms around Nico, much to his surprise. It was a relief that Nico had become so accustomed to personal contact as of late, or he suspected he may have fallen off the sofa.

“Sleep well. I’ll make you both breakfast in the morning,” she promised, releasing Nico to pull Will into a hug, planting a kiss on his forehead before waving one last time and heading back up the stairs.

“Your mom‘s really nice,” Nico said, “I hadn’t expected her to approve of me.”

“Don’t be silly,” Will rolled his eyes, “I already told you she’d love you.”

“Yeah, but I’m not exactly the kind of person most people would want to introduce to their mothers,” Nico protested.

“Hate to break it to you, Mr Doom and Gloom, but you’re not as intimidating as you like to pretend,” Will said cheerfully. Nico pouted at him and tried to glare but Will just leaned forward and touched his nose to Nico’s.

“You’re like a cute little puppy.”

Nico jerked his head away.

“You’re the worst,” he commented.

“Fine, you’re sleeping on the air mattress then,” Will shrugged before jumping to his feet, extending a hand to pull Nico with him, “but not until you’ve had the grand introduction to my room!”

Nico wasn’t sure what he was expecting Will’s room to look like but based on the fact that Nico had only ever seen Will sleep in the Apollo cabin- a room that literally glittered gold- and the Hades cabin that looked more like a morgue than a place a living person should sleep, he supposed he should have guessed it would be something in the middle.

Will’s walls were painted pale blue but not much of the paintwork was visible underneath the mass of posters covering his wall. Nico didn’t recognise many of them but of the ones he did know, they were of bands, films and TV shows that were popular enough, Nico had actually heard of them. 

A large Harry Potter poster was surrounded by some smaller Disney posters, a Lord of the Rings poster and two Star Wars ones. On the wall opposite, there were a selection of bands represented: Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, My Chemical Romance and Green Day.

The remaining walls were taken up by a large wooden wardrobe and a window that overlooked the garden Nico had shadow travelled into only a few hours previously. 

Nico wasn’t surprised at how tidy Will’s room was, though. All his books were piled neatly and there wasn’t a stray item of clothing in sight. On a bookshelf there was a tall pile of medical books that caught Nico’s eye. He hadn’t realised Will actually had to learn things for all the healing he did at Camp- he’d assumed it was inherited knowledge from Apollo. Nico felt a warmth grow in his chest at the thought of Will studying the medical books into the night, desperate to help an injured camper.

“So, what do you think?” Will asked, flopping down onto his own bed, covered in a deep blue space duvet. 

Nico tried to think of a way to describe the room. It was just so… Will.

He allowed a smile to creep its way onto his face.

“I love it,” he admitted. Will beamed and motioned for Nico to sit next to him on the bed. Nico obliged and couldn’t help but sit a little closer to Will so that their legs were touching. After all, it had been a week and he hadn’t been left alone with Will for all of that time. He missed the privacy, not that they got much at Camp anyway.

“What were you thinking downstairs when you were looking at the photos?” Will asked, “I saw your face fall a couple of times and when I returned with the drinks you were definitely more tense than usual.”

Nico observed the concerned look on Will’s face. His eyebrows had scrunched together and Nico really wanted to smooth the crease lines out with his thumb. 

“I’ll be fine, I promise. You don’t need to worry,” Nico assured. Will chewed his lip and Nico unintentionally followed the movement with his gaze.

“I do worry, though. I was the one that asked you to come here and I don’t want you to feel panicked or trapped or anything. I just wanted to spend time with you. Maybe I was being selfish,” Will huffed but Nico grabbed his wrists where his hands had been gesturing as he talked.

“Will, that’s not it at all. I chose to come here. I don’t feel trapped at all and your mom is really lovely. Downstairs I-“ Nico paused for a second and allowed Will to intertwine their fingers where his grip had loosened on Will’s wrist, “I was just thinking that no one had ever taken a photo of me. Because, you know, my mom and sister aren’t alive. It just made me think that there’s nothing to ever remember me by. It’s stupid, I know-“

“No it’s not,” Will cut Nico off, “Nico, that’s not stupid at all. Photos have always been a big part of my life. They always help me remember happy moments and keep me connected to the mortal world. I promise you we will take so many photos together this weekend because I always want to have something to remember you by.”

Will leaned forwards to rest his forehead against Nico’s. Nico sighed. He’d felt sort of silly explaining why he’d felt strange earlier but as always, Will never thought Nico was being annoying or stupid or a nuisance or anything. He was always just there to support him.

“I love you,” Nico choked out, not having expected his voice to have sounded so strangled. It didn’t matter, though because the next thing Nico knew, Will’s lips were pressed against his and gods of Olympus Nico had been wanting to kiss Will all evening and now he finally was and Will’s lips were sliding over his urgently and Nico was leaning up into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Will’s neck and pushing forward so hard that they both fell backwards onto the bed, giggling slightly before returning their mouths to one another’s.

Nico pushed himself up on all fours above Will but Will didn’t let that break the kiss, instead leaning upwards to capture Nico’s lips again and pull him straight back down, his hands sliding over Nico’s back, into his hair, over his arms, cupping his face, tracing the slither of skin along his stomach that had been exposed due to the fall.

Nico reciprocated with his own actions, letting out a small gasp, running his own hands through Will’s tousled blond hair and pressing his body against Will’s as he tugged on Will’s lower lip with his teeth, pressing more fervent kisses to Will’s mouth.

Nico wasn’t sure how he was going to last for the rest of the time Will was at school for. If he had missed kissing Will this much after a week, he was going to be almost embarrassingly clingy when the few weeks before Christmas rolled around and Will returned.

Will finally detached his mouth from Nico’s much to his disapproval and pressed his lips instead to Nico’s hand.

“We should probably get to sleep. I never get a lie in, even on weekends,” Will explained. Nico had to try hard not to pout.

“I suppose. We could just stay in later, though,” he suggested. Nico hated waking up early and going to bed early. Will laughed at the proposition.

“I literally can’t. As soon as the sun rises I can never get to sleep again. I’m pretty sure it’s my dad’s fault,” he explained. Nico winced at the thought.

“That sounds terrible,” he said.

“I’m pretty used to it now,” Will shrugged, “however,” he added, leaning closer to Nico again so that Nico wanted nothing more than to continue kissing him, “I still need to get early nights. Do you have pyjamas? You should probably take a shower and make sure there’s no tree stuck in your hair, too.”

“Why, do I smell that bad?” Nico teased, glad he’d managed to find his voice again. Will crinkled his nose up comically.

“No comment,” he said. Nico pushed him lightly in the chest.

“You didn’t seem to mind a few seconds ago,” he retorted. Will gasped.

“I hope you drown in that shower, di Angelo,” Will said. Nico laughed.

“I’ll come and haunt you as a ghost if I do,” he promised. Nico slid off the bed and went over to his bag he hadn’t previously realised was sat in the middle of the guest bed.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” Will muttered under his breath. Nico just chuckled in response as he fished his pyjamas out.

“Which door is the bathroom?” he asked.

“Second on the left,” Will instructed cheerfully. Nico nodded and made his way to the door, smiling to himself as he left.

* * *

One day, Nico was going to learn that irony wasn’t just something that happened in fiction. Just as he’d been thinking he was going to enjoy the weekend at the Solace’s house, he had to have his first nightmare about Tartarus since the war with Gaia.

Sure, Nico had had nightmares since- nightmares of being trapped in the jar with only a few pomegranate seeds, feeling like he was slowly suffocating to death with no way to escape; the nightmares about coming out to camp and Will rejecting him; nightmares about fire, storms, giants, monsters and death: the demigod usual- but he hadn’t had a nightmare about Tartarus yet.

In all honesty, Nico wasn’t quite sure how Percy and Annabeth had survived Tartarus. Even Percy himself had commented to Nico that he’d had Annabeth with him- he hadn’t been alone- but Nico knew it hadn’t quite been the same for him as it had been for the two of them. 

Nico spent a lot of his time in the Underworld already. Nico imagined Tartarus for him just felt like the Underworld for other people. 

Sure, it was terrifying, felt like death and Nico had nearly lost his life several times despite only being in there for a short time before being flanked by Gaia’s minions and captured, but he also had the advantage of being the son of Hades.

He had seen the form of Tartarus that Percy had seen, though. That was what the most terrifying thing had been.

That’s what Nico dreamed of.

It was just after Gaia’s followers had captured him. Nico normally would have been able to put up a better fight but he wasn’t in the Underworld, he was in Tartarus and that was their domain. Nico was captured by the two giants, Otis and Ephialtes, and forced to stare into the horrific form of pulsing purple muscle and writhing flesh that couldn’t possibly be a living thing and yet was so alive Nico could feel its very existence crawling under his skin.

It wasn’t just the jar that was suffocating, too- being in Tartarus made Nico’s skin itch and his chest feel tight. There was no medical grade oxygen down in the pits of Tartarus. Only a small fraction of the air that burned when inhaled was physically able to keep Nico alive. He could remember the feeling better than he thought he could. It made him feel weak- helpless.

If the giants had left him in there for any amount of time longer, he would have gone insane, died, or perhaps both at the same time. He wanted to scream out, to summon an army of skeletons, to shadow travel very far away.

He could do nothing.

‘Ransom’ he was told he was being kept for. Only one thought went through Nico’s head. He possibly even let out a cold laugh there and then.

As if anyone would fall into the giants’ trap to save him.

This time no one did come for him, though. The giants didn’t even take him out of Tartarus. He was trapped, with no help on its way, no weapon to defend himself with, his skin burning and his lungs feeling raw. There was no escape. He was going to die alone and no one would care. He had never been so useless before.

A hand wrapped around Nico from behind and he cried out in alarm, suddenly able to twist himself free of the chains he was bound in.

Nico came face to face with a very concerned looking Will Solace. His face was paler than Nico had ever seen it and he looked like he had tears streaming down the front of his face. Nico pulled an arm free from underneath him and patted his own cheek. He was crying too.

Then Nico remembered where he was. He was in Will’s room. Will had his arm around him. He was safe. Hazel and Percy had brought the others to come and save him. He was alive.

And Will Solace was right there with him.

Nico didn’t know what else to do. He buried his head into the front of Will’s night shirt and sobbed.

Will wrapped his arms around Nico slightly tighter and pulled him closer under the covers.

“Shh,” he whispered, “you’re safe. No one’s hurting you. I’m here. Gods, Nico, you’ve been through so much but you’re okay now. You made it through. You’re so strong. You’re the strongest person I know. I love you so much, okay?”

Nico cried harder as Will ran his fingers through his tangled, dark hair. He let Will’s words comfort him, reminding him where he was, who he was, who was with him. Will was right- he was safe.

“I-I’m sorry,” Nico choked out.

“Hey, you have nothing to apologise for,” Will said sternly yet softly, “every demigod has nightmares. This was just a particularly bad one. You’ve been through a lot, Nico.”

“I was back in Tartarus,” Nico began to explain, feeling as if he owed Will the explanation. To his surprise, Will shushed him again and pushed him back slightly to look in his eyes.

“I don’t want you to have to relive it just to explain to me,” Will insisted, “just hold me. I’m here, okay?”

Nico nodded into Will’s shoulder and for once, made no complaint about following his instructions.

It took a while for Nico’s heart rate to steady again and for the tears to stop flowing. Will held onto Nico like he was his lifeline- like Will was the one who had had the nightmare, not Nico.

“Feeling better?” Will asked when he noticed Nico had stopped shaking, relenting his grip on Nico’s shoulders a fraction.

Nico nodded and wiped his hands under his eyes.

“Thank you for being here. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been,” Nico admitted, “I haven’t had a nightmare that bad in a while.”

Will smiled at Nico and ran his fingers through his hair again, just as he’d been doing when calming Nico down.

“I was actually really scared,” Will said softly. Nico looked at him puzzled, silently telling him to continue. He did, “I was just waking up anyway because it’s practically morning when suddenly you seized up in my arms and started shaking. Your breathing rate increased and your pulse shot up and I kept trying to wake you but you wouldn’t. Then you started to cry and call out and I hugged you but you fell limp in my arms.”

Nico stared at him in shock.

“I thought you’d settled down but then you started shaking again, only this time you weren’t fighting me. I released my arms but you stayed still, crying and shaking. I kept calling your name and reached out to try and shake you awake when you finally woke up. I hadn’t realised I’d been crying too until you wiped your own tears,” Will finished.

“Will, I’m so sorry-“

“Stop apologising,” Will interrupted harshly, “you’re allowed to have nightmares and you don’t have to be sorry for upsetting me. I was just really worried about you, okay? I hate seeing you that upset.”

Nico breathed out, his heart pounding. If Will could be there for all his nightmares, Nico had a feeling he might just be able to cope with them a little bit easier. Of course, he’d rather never go through them again- that way both he and Will could get a peaceful night’s sleep.

“Thank you,” Nico gasped, “but really, I am sorry for putting you through that.”

“Nico, it’s okay, really. I want to share the pain with you if I can. No one should have to go through that alone,” Will insisted before pulling Nico back into a hug. “I’m a healer. I hate not being able to heal mental scars. Being here is the next best thing I can do.”

Nico was pretty sure Will was going to make him cry again. What had he done to ever deserve someone as incredible as Will? 

He thought back to what he’d been thinking last night- that he didn’t want to unload all his troubles onto Will. However, this morning, he was wondering if it might lighten the burden, being able to tell someone else. 

“Will,” Nico said slowly, “can I- tell you about the dream?”

Will drew back and raised an eyebrow at Nico. “Do you want to?”

“Yes,” Nico spluttered, “but I don’t want to unload everything on you if it’s going to be too much. Just… tell me if you need me to stop, yeah?”

Will nodded solemnly and before Nico knew what he was doing, he was describing the feeling of being in Tartarus, the monsters he’d encountered, his fear, pain and suffering over the years, losing Bianca and how it had made him snap inside, feeling so much for Percy that he could hardly differentiate the love from the hate, feeling like he’d never belong anywhere and could never be loved.

Will listened intently, holding Nico. He was opening up to Will more than he ever had before and even though he knew Will well enough by now to know he’d support him through anything, it was still almost unbearably terrifying.

“Thank you,” Will said when Nico finally finished.

“What?” Nico asked, more out of confusion than surprise.

“For telling me,” Will expanded, “I- I never knew you’d been through quite that much so thank you for telling me. It means a lot to me. I just don’t know how you manage to stay so strong. If it was me-“ Nico felt Will shiver against him. 

“I wasn’t okay,” Nico said, “for a long time I just shut people out. You know what I was like on top of the hill the night I returned. I wanted nothing to do with you. Apparently, my heart thought differently. You’ve helped me a lot, Will. Without you, I wouldn’t be able to do half the stuff I can without freaking out and running away.”

Nico rolled his eyes at the end but Will just smiled at him.

“You’re secretly a bit of sap, you know that?” he smirked.

“Shut up, no I’m not,” Nico complained, wriggling out of his arms, “I try and be nice and this is the thanks I get?”

“Like I said- you’re a sap,” Will teased, poking Nico gently in the side.

“I’m not,” Nico insisted, nudging Will back.

“Are,” Will argued.

“Not.”

“Are.”

“Do I smell pancakes?” Nico interrupted their argument as his nose caught scent of something very welcoming. Will grinned.

“My Mom’s Special. Come on, let’s get dressed for the day. I want to take you out into the town to see all my favourite spots,” Will grinned, “if you’re okay with it, that is.”

Nico knew Will had spotted his face fall a tiny bit but he steeled his nerves. If he could get through Tartarus, he could get through a day in the mortal world.

“Yeah, let’s do it,” he agreed.

As promised, Naomi Solace’s pancakes were incredible. Nico was pretty sure he’d never eat Camp’s pancakes again because they would never compare. Naomi had had to head off to work shortly after, so she had dropped the two boys into town beforehand.

Nico suspected she knew about the nightmare because she gave him gentle shoulder touches all through the morning even though she didn’t say anything. Nico was grateful for that but he also suspected Naomi didn’t quite know what to say to her son’s boyfriend after he’d had a demigod nightmare. He couldn’t blame her- it wasn’t exactly something they prepared you for in a parenting course.

Now Nico and Will were alone in a town Nico had never been to before and Nico was feeling just slightly nervous.

Okay, that was an understatement. Nico wasn’t sure why exactly he felt so on edge but his eyes were darting around everywhere, constantly searching for monsters or danger of any sort.

“Hey,” Will said gently, slipping his hand into Nico’s upon noticing his discomfort, “you don’t need to worry, okay? Do you want to sit down somewhere?”

Nico shook his head and gripped Will’s hand a bit harder. Then he realised he was holding a hand with a boy in public and pulled it away quickly.

“Nico?” Will asked.

“I’m sorry- I-“ Nico nearly teared up. He was panicking. Why was he panicking?

“It’s okay, just take deep breaths. You know no one will mind if we hold hands, right? The world isn’t as homophobic as when you were born, I promise,” Will explained. Nico nodded and allowed Will to take his hand again. He was still panicking. He wasn’t really sure why.

“How about we sit down?” Will suggested, “there’s a café I know quite well just around the corner from here. We can go and get a hot chocolate.”

“Y-yeah, okay,” Nico agreed. He felt bad for Will. Will had just wanted to spend a normal day out with Nico and here Nico was, doing the one thing he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do- panicking.

“Don’t worry, okay? You’re allowed to panic,” Will promised.

“I don’t deserve you,” Nico muttered under his breath, leaning against Will as a tall man walked close past him. Will chuckled gently.

“Personally, I’d suggest it was the other way around. Now, come on, Lord of Darkness,” he smirked. Nico managed a very small smile in return as Will led him inside a brightly lit coffee shop.

“Hey, Will! The regular?” a boy around their age asked as soon as the door opened and Nico and Will stepped inside.

“Times two, please, Jared,” Will smiled at the barista. Nico felt his nerves relax very slightly at being inside. He logically knew a monster could still attack him but somehow, not being out in the open had helped.

“Coming right up,” Jared said, glancing between Nico and Will and flashing Will a wink. Will tugged at Nico’s hand and pulled him towards a table.

“You seem calmer,” Will observed, “what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” Nico apologised, “I panicked. I was trying not to, but being out in the open-“ Nico shivered.

“I understand. Your scent is stronger than mine to monsters so I imagine you’re probably a bit more likely to be attacked than me. We can take them, though, if they find us. Together,” Will promised. Nico smiled back.

“Two hot chocolates,” Jared arrived at their table a minute or so later, “you going to introduce me, Will?”

“Oh, of course,” Will suddenly realised. Nico raised an eyebrow at him curiously. “Nico, this is Jared. He goes to school with me. Jared, this is Nico. I know him from the Camp I go to.”

“The one you can’t tell us any details about but disappear halfway through the school term to return to?” Jared asked with a smirk. Will laughed.

“That’s the one,” he grinned, “Nico’s my boyfriend, by the way.”

To Nico’s surprise, Will had rushed the last bit out as if he struggled to say it. Nico recognised that. Apparently, whilst Will was very open about his sexuality at Camp, his school friends weren’t quite as aware of it.

“Oh,” Jared smiled, “that’s cool, man. It’s nice to meet you, Nico.”

“And you,” Nico said politely, “your hot chocolate is good.”

“It’s the only reason I come here,” Will teased Jared.

“You mean it isn’t my dashing looks and witty banter?” Jared asked in return.

“I’m still waiting on both of those orders,” Will said wryly. Nico chuckled gently even though he was slightly jealous that Will was teasing someone other than him. Nico had never thought he would be the jealous type but apparently that was before he met Will. He supposed Jared was ruggedly handsome. He also didn’t have demigod nightmares and a fear of monsters following him. Maybe Will would be better off with a mortal after all.

“Well, I’ll let you two get on with your date. Don’t want to be a third wheel,” Jared said, winking at Nico. Nico rolled his eyes a bit. Unlike the winks Will gave him, Jared’s seemed casual and friendly. Will’s had always seemed more intimate, somehow. 

“Thanks. I’ll see you on Monday,” Will smiled back and leaned over the table to enclose his hand around Nico’s.

“You doing okay?” he asked as soon as Jared had left. Nico’s heart stuttered in his chest. Maybe Will did still think Nico was okay, even if he could most likely do better.

“I suppose,” Nico shrugged, “better than when I came in. The hot chocolate’s helping.”

Will laughed, “Nothing like a warm drink to help you feel better.”

Nico was about to respond when he noticed a flash of movement out of the window. His attention immediately snapped towards it and he could have sworn he saw ram-like horns.

Will’s head also snapped in the direction Nico was looking the second a high pitched scream was heard.

“Monster?” Will asked, turning around to catch Nico’s eyes again. Nico nodded his head solemnly and reached his hand for his side. As always, his stygian iron sword was slung through its scabbard on his belt.

“I think it’s following a half-blood. Let’s go,” Nico insisted, jumping to his feet. Considering all the fear he’d been feeling about running into a monster, now that there was a strong possibility he had, he didn’t feel all that scared at all.

With his free hand, Nico grabbed Will’s outstretched one and pulled him to his feet, darting out of the café and following the direction he’d seen the monster go in.

“There’s an injured girl in that back alley,” Will said suddenly, pulling Nico’s hand in the direction he was pointing.

“How did you know?” Nico gasped out as he ran.

“I don’t know,” Will called in response, “I just sensed it.”

Nico wondered if Will could sense injuries the same way he could sense death.

“Nico, I don’t have my sword,” Will called out again as they rounded the corner and appeared at the top of the alley. Sure enough, a creature was looming over a small girl- unmistakably a half-blood- with a large gash on her leg and smaller cuts on her cheeks.

The monster was almost serpent-like, with two large ram horns and a smaller set of horns underneath. Its legs were short but it could clearly move at a decent speed. Nico unfortunately recognised it.

“Cerastes,” he identified.

“Good or bad?” Will asked in a slightly panicked voice. Nico squeezed his hand, suddenly realising that Will wasn’t quite as accustomed to fighting monsters as Nico was.

“Not that bad. They usually lure their prey so they aren’t as much of a threat when they’re visible,” Nico explained, turning back to look at Will’s face which was pale and aghast with fear. Nico smiled, “don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

Will nodded and released Nico’s hand as he stepped towards the monster.

“Help me, please,” the small girl begged as she noticed Nico. The monster was unfortunately smart enough to notice Nico’s presence at the girl’s words. It turned around and roared at Nico, blowing an unpleasant smelling wind through his hair. Nico gritted his teeth and swung his sword out before him, diving towards the monster.

He’d anticipated the Cerastes’ move. It rammed its horns at him, intending to skewer Nico on the end, but he rolled and came out to the side of it. He attempted a jab in its long, serpent-like neck. 

Unfortunately, the Cerastes was quick and moved its neck out of the way, causing Nico to only just graze the side. Golden ichor trickled out of the wound, distracting the monster enough for Nico to run past it and towards the girl.

“It’s bleeding gold,” the girl whimpered. Nico crouched down next to her.

“Don’t panic- I’ll take care of the Cerastes for you. Do you see the boy over there with blond hair? That’s Will- he can heal your wounds for you and we’ll make sure you’re safe. When I say go, can you run towards him?” Nico explained. The girl looked at him in shock with wide eyes and nodded her head.

“Yeah,” she agreed, slightly dazed. Nico knew the feeling well but this time, he had to be the one protecting her. Unfortunately, during their chatting, the Cerastes had recovered from its shock and was rounding on Nico and the girl again. Nico jumped out of his crouch and readied his sword in front of him again. The Cerastes looked at the stygian iron and hissed in annoyance. Nico had a plan and he could only hope it wouldn’t fall through.

The Cerastes lunged towards Nico, its horns bared forwards, and began to charge towards the two.

Just as it did so, Nico yelled, “Go!” at the young girl and she darted out to the side of him and around the monster, just as asked. She was brave, Nico would give her that.

Nico waited a few seconds longer for the Cerastes to come towards him and just as the tip of its Ram horn was about to barrel into Nico’s head, Nico dived to the side, allowing the Cerastes to ram its horns into the alley wall right where Nico’s head had been.

Nico didn’t hesitate to haul himself onto the scaly neck of the Cerastes and, before it knew what had hit it, slice its head clean off its body. His sword went right in past the hilt, smearing golden ichor across Nico’s hand.

The girl made a strangled cry behind Nico as he jumped off the Cerastes before it could disintegrate. Nico swung his sword back into its scabbard at his hips and wiped his hands on his torn black jeans. That luckily hadn’t been too difficult. However, he and Will now had a demigod girl to take to Camp which was sort of inconvenient.

Nico walked back over to where both the girl and Will were staring at him in shock.

“Do I have ichor in my hair?” he asked, puzzled at their agape stares. Will shook his head.

“No, you look amazi- fine!” he spluttered, “you look fine.”

Nico raised an eyebrow at him curiously as his heart stuttered slightly in his chest. They had more pressing matters, though.

“What’s your name?” Nico asked the girl.

“Cordelia,” she responded.

“Nice to meet you, Cordelia,” Nico tried to smile, “I’m Nico and this is Will, as I said. Has he healed your wounds?”

Cordelia nodded.

“It was like magic,” she said, “and you killed the monster, too. Are you superheroes?”

Will chuckled lightly next to Nico.

“Just heroes,” he smiled, “do you mind me asking who your parents are?” 

Cordelia frowned at that, although Nico had sort of been expecting that.

“I don’t know my daddy. My momma isn’t very nice. She thinks I steal things. I don’t though, I promise! I-I’ve run away,” Cordelia explained. She looked up at Nico and Will pleadingly, “please don’t take me back!”

“Hey, don’t worry, we won’t,” Will said gently, placing his hand on Cordelia’s shoulder, “we do know a safe place we think you should go, though. Have you had many monsters following you?”

She shook her head.

“There was a really big angry dog once but it left me alone when I went inside a library. This is the only one that’s attacked me,” she explained.

“How old are you, Cordelia?” Nico asked.

“Eight,” she responded. Nico nodded. Her scent wouldn’t have been too strong yet, but now that she’d spent time with Nico and Will, she’d definitely have more of an idea of who she was. They had to get her to camp.

“This is going to sound really strange,” Will began, “but have you ever heard of the Greek gods?”

Cordelia screwed her blonde eyebrows up in confusion, “Like Zeus? I don’t know much about them."

“Well, you’re about to learn a bit more,” Nico said dryly before turning to Will, “I can Shadow Travel her back to Camp and then join you again.”

“No way, you’re not leaving my side. Doctor’s Orders,” Will insisted.

“Will, we have to take her. You know she’ll only attract more monsters if we don’t,” Nico huffed. Will ran a hand through his hair and stared at the ground, clearly deep in thought.

“We can take a bus?” he suggested. Nico shook his head.

“Not enough time. I’ll Shadow Travel you, too, so you can heal me when we get to Camp or whatever,” Nico conceded. Will chewed his lip in consideration.

“Fine,” he relented before softening his tone and turning to Cordelia again, “do you trust us to take you somewhere safe?”

Cordelia looked uncertain for a few seconds. Her eyes flickered between Nico’s and Will’s. When they landed on Nico’s again, he tried to give her a smile. He’d never been very good with children. They always seemed scared of him. It was natural, he supposed- he was a son of Hades, after all and he’d just killed a monster right in front of her.

“Okay. I don’t want to see any more monsters,” she decided. Nico breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alright, both of you take my hands,” he instructed, “I hope you don’t get motion sickness.”

“Wait what?” Will spluttered before Nico stepped the three of them forwards into their own shadows and dissolved into darkness.

For the first time in his last three Shadow Travel jumps, Nico landed in exactly the spot he’d intended with no passing out or falling through trees. He released Cordelia and Will’s hands upon landing and turned to face them. Cordelia’s eyes were shining and she was grinning, practically jumping up and down in excitement.

“That was so cool,” she grinned, “can we do it again?”

“Absolutely not,” Will said. He didn’t seem to have taken the Shadow Travel as well as Cordelia and was looking slightly pale, “oh gods, I need to sit down. So do you,” he added, pointing a stern finger at Nico. Nico rolled his eyes.

“Come on, let’s just find Chiron and introduce him to Cordelia,” Nico said. The three demigods made their way to the Big House which luckily wasn’t far from their landing spot. Chiron was sat inside his office, listening to classical jazz music.

“Chiron,” Nico said to gain his attention.

“Mr di Angelo, I don’t suppose you’d care to explain why exactly you disappeared from Camp last night?” Chiron said sternly before he turned around and spotted Nico’s company.

“Ah, I see,” he mused, “It’s good to see you back, Will, although I thought you still had several more weeks until you returned for Christmas. It is still only September.”

“I know,” Will said, “it was sort of an emergency.”

“You’re a horse!” Cordelia suddenly realised, making her presence clear at last.

“Centaur, my dear,” Chiron corrected, “I presume this was the emergency?”

“A Cerastes found her in an alley,” Nico explained, “her dad’s one of the gods. Cordelia, this is Chiron. He’s our mentor here at Camp.”

“This is a Camp?” Cordelia asked with wide eyes, “what sort of Camp? Did you say my dad’s a god? Is that why you asked me about Greek gods?”

Chiron chuckled at her questions.

“Don’t worry, my dear, everything will make sense soon. How about I give you a tour around Camp so we can leave these two to get on with their date,” Chiron suggested, looking pointedly at Will and Nico. Nico felt his face flush in embarrassment as Cordelia turned around to look at the two of them with a cheeky grin.

“You were on a date?” she giggled.

“Th-that’s not important,” Nico spluttered, “thanks, Chiron. Cordelia, I’ll be back here in a couple of days. I hope you settle in, in the meantime.”

Cordelia nodded and looked slightly sad to see them go.

“Thank you for fighting the monster. And thank you for healing me!” she added. Will smiled at her and ruffled her hair.

“It was no problem. We were happy to help,” he promised.

“Come now, Cordelia, do you like archery?” Chiron asked and he led Cordelia out of the Big House to explore the grounds.

“Ready to Shadow Travel back?” Nico asked.

“No!” Will spluttered, “it felt like being squeezed through a tube that was way too tight.”

Nico shrugged and smirked, “You’ll get used to it.”

Before Will could protest again, Nico grabbed both his hands and tugged him forwards into the shadow that had formed over the porch, dissolving into it.

When Nico and Will reemerged, Will fell forwards into Nico’s arms and clung onto him.

“How do you do this without throwing up?” Will asked breathlessly. 

“You’ve managed,” Nico pointed out. Will managed to straighten himself up and regained his bearings.

“I suppose so, yeah,” he noted, “please can we sit down, though?”

Nico chuckled but agreed. After two bouts of Shadow Travel, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t feeling weary himself.

“How’s your panic doing?” Will asked. 

“The monster worked as a pretty good distraction, actually,” Nico noticed. He’d completely forgotten about the panic attack. He supposed it was kind of ironic considering meeting a monster had been what he was panicking about in the first place, “I sort of forgot to panic.”

“Yeah, well,” Will shrugged, “I think you passed it onto me. Sorry I sort of froze up when we saw the monster. I’ve never really met one without being surrounded by loads of other demigods. I’m glad you were there, too.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Be glad you haven’t had to meet one by yourself before. If you had your sword, you would have been fine, I promise,” Nico insisted. Will shrugged so Nico took the silence as an opportunity to continue. He could still feel adrenaline coursing through his veins from the fight- he needed an outlet to drain it.

“Is that why you looked so shocked at the end, too, when I killed it?” Nico asked. To his surprise, Will’s face flushed red.

“No, er, that was less to do with the monster,” he explained, “more to do with you.”

Nico suddenly realised what Will was meaning. Or at least, he was pretty certain he did.

“Oh really?” Nico teased, “then maybe I should find a few more monsters to kill around you, then.”

“Oh, shut up,” Will grumbled, nudging Nico with his shoulder.

“What? I don’t have a problem with you watching me fight monsters,” Nico shrugged, allowing a sly grin to edge its way onto his face.

“I think I’ve decided I like you better when you’re panicking- you’re not teasing me then, at least,” Will huffed, “I’m allowed to think my boyfriend looks good when he’s using a sword, okay?”

Nico chuckled.

“Stop complaining, Solace,” he whispered as their faces drew closer together. Will really did stop complaining when Nico connected their lips.

* * *

Nico wished he didn’t only have a weekend with the Solaces but when Sunday evening rolled around, Naomi told him he was welcome back any time he liked and Nico thought he might just be tempted to take her up on the offer.

Will gave Nico a lecture about making sure he didn’t use his powers again for at least twenty-four hours after the Shadow Travel back before pulling him into a tight hug that Nico melted into. He wouldn’t be seeing Will again until a few weeks before Christmas and he’d be lying if he even pretended that he wasn’t going to miss the son of Apollo immensely.

“Promise you’ll Iris message me, right?” Will begged.

“Of course,” Nico rolled his eyes. As if he’d pass up any opportunity to see Will again, even if only through a rainbow.

“Don’t go having too much fun at Camp without me, though,” Will added with a laugh.

“I’ll let you know if Cecil finally manages to get someone killed,” Nico promised. 

“Stay safe, Nico. Thank you for coming over. It’s been lovely meeting you,” Naomi smiled.

“Thanks for your hospitality,” Nico replied, “it’s been really nice. Your pancakes are very good.”

Naomi chuckled and ruffled his hair.

“Well, I’d better be going now,” Nico said, shouldering his bag and heading towards the shadow he intended to travel through.

“Wait, one last thing,” Will blurted out as he jogged forwards towards Nico. Nico looked up at him with a small smile and raised an eyebrow.

“Yes?” he said. Will smiled back and cupped his face before bringing their lips together in one final, chaste kiss- Will’s mom was watching, after all.

“I love you,” Will added. Nico tried to act embarrassed but he was struggling to hide his grin.

“Yeah, love you too or whatever,” he grumbled. “Don’t go getting attacked by monsters before I next see you, okay?”

“I promise,” Will agreed before stepping away and leaving Nico to melt into the shadows.

When Nico next opened his eyes, he was back at Camp Halfblood, stood in the woods he always went to with Will in the shadow of a tree. He took a deep breath in, smelling the freshness of the forest and the dampness of the canoe lake. He was going to miss Will a lot.

Still, Nico had things to do at Camp as well. Jason’s building project was still underway, Kayla had plenty of teases about him and Will up her sleeve upon Nico’s return and Cordelia was overjoyed to see Nico again.

“Nico, Nico, I got claimed!” she said excitedly. Nico raised his eyebrows and smiled at the small, blonde girl.

“Really? Who’s your dad?” he asked.

“Hermes!” Cordelia grinned, “Cecil’s my big brother. And Connor and Chris and Julia and Alice.”

“I bet they’re keeping you on your toes, then,” Nico chuckled.

“Watch it, Death Boy,” Cecil retorted, elbowing Nico.

“Cecil’s funny, though!” Cordelia argued enthusiastically, “he has good jokes.”

“Hey, Nico, listen to this one,” Cecil grinned as he crouched down, allowing Cordelia to climb on his back after a few attempts of her jumping up to reach herself, “why are mountains so funny?”

Nico looked at him.

“They’re not?” he pointed out.

“That’s right,” Cecil said, “they’re hill areas.”

Cordelia promptly burst out laughing and Nico had to try hard to resist a smile himself.

“Get it? Hill areas: hilarious?” Cecil chuckled, nearly falling over with the combined weight of his own body plus Cordelia’s.

“I hope Lou Ellen returns soon,” Nico rolled his eyes, “I don’t think I can cope with you on my own.”

Cecil merely laughed louder at this and Cordelia joined in, despite Nico’s doubts that she had any clue who Lou Ellen even was. Cordelia seemed happy, though and that was what mattered. She was already seeming so different from the small, frightened girl he’d found cornered by the Cerastes.

Maybe the wait for Will at Christmas wouldn’t seem so long, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter was a bit longer! I'm incapable of writing short things


	3. Demigods and Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter is upon Camp Halfblood and Nico is panicking. What in Hades is he supposed to get his boyfriend for Christmas?

To put it simply, Nico was panicking. Will was due to return later that day and Cecil had very unpleasantly reminded him of a Christmas tradition just that morning. Considering all of Nico’s previous Christmases had been spent rather separated from the festivities, he had almost completely forgotten about it.

“So, what are you getting Will for Christmas?” Cecil had asked casually as the two made their way to the canoe lake for a session with the Aphrodite and other Hermes kids.

Nico stopped walking.

“Dude, please tell me you remembered to get your boyfriend a gift,” Cecil said, noticing his shock at the statement.

“I, uh,” Nico began, wondering how he could phrase this without seeming like a terrible person, “I sort of forgot that people gave gifts?”

“You what? Nico, it’s Christmas!” Cecil practically yelled.

“I’ve not exactly had the best experiences of Christmas over the years,” Nico snapped back as a means of defense, but as soon as he noticed Cecil stumble backward at his abrupt tone, he relented. “I’m sorry. I’ve not really been around anyone else at Christmas before and now I have to get Will a gift or he’s going to think I’m a terrible boyfriend. What do you even give people for Christmas? How am I going to get something?”

“Do I hear relationship problems?” a girl’s chipper voice piped up from behind Cecil and a panicking Nico. Nico turned around to see Lacy and Mitchell from the Aphrodite cabin, also headed down to the canoe lake.

“Not really,” Nico huffed. He refused to resort to advice from the children of the goddess of love.

“Yes,” Cecil butted in, “Nico hasn’t got Will a Christmas present yet. He arrives back at Camp today.”

“Oh, that’s bad,” Lacy sighed.

“Not that bad,” Mitchell added helpfully, “Christmas is still a couple of weeks away.”

“I’m going to Camp Jupiter next week, though,” Nico pointed out, “I promised my sister. And Frank, Reyna, Piper, and Jason.”

“Hey, maybe they can help you find something over there!” Lacy grinned, cheerfully. Nico raised an eyebrow.

“Have you been to New Rome? It’s hardly a place I can find a Christmas gift.”

“I can always steal something for you,” Cecil added helpfully. Nico sent him a quick glare that shut him up in seconds.

“What sort of thing do I even get him?” Nico asked exasperatedly. Lacy and Mitchell looked at each other thoughtfully and before Nico knew it, he was spending the day floating on the canoe lake with Cecil, Lacy, and Mitchell, deciding what he could possibly get Will for Christmas that wasn’t too expensive, too cheesy, something Will would dislike or something Nico would never get him.

“This is impossible!” Lacy huffed two hours later as the four made their way back to the Mess Hall, “why can’t I think of anything that’s just right?”

“What’s impossible?” an all too familiar voice asked from behind them. Nico spun around faster than lightning and before he could even consider what he was doing, his arms were thrown around Will Solace’s neck as his boyfriend picked him up and spun him around.

“You’re back,” Nico stated very obviously, not even attempting to hide the grin on his face at Will’s return.

“Miss me?” Will asked, leaning his face down towards Nico. Nico didn’t even bother to respond, taking Will’s actions as invitation enough to place his hands on either side of Will’s face and kiss him.

Will made a contented hum that had Nico’s heart skipping a beat before he drew back, keeping his hands firmly on Nico’s waist.

“‘I’ll take that as a yes,” Will smirked. Nico rolled his eyes when a short cough interrupted the moment between the two.

“Nico, if you wanna drop by our cabin later you can do. I guess you two probably want to… catch up,” Mitchell offered. Nico had the decency to at least blush at the act of affection he’d so openly displayed in front of the others.

“Yeah, uh, sorry. I’ll probably drop by,” he said.

“Please go to the Hades cabin or something before you start making out, though. I don’t want to see my two bros swapping saliva again,” Cecil begged as an afterthought just as the three began to leave.

“Shut up, Cecil,” Nico huffed, his cheeks still glowing red. Cecil chuckled and waved.

“Have fun, lovebirds.”

“So do you want to heed Cecil’s advice, or-?” Will started, tilting his head endearingly with a mischievous smile gracing his lips. Nico looked at him properly for the first time since his return. 

If Nico didn’t know better, he’d think Will had grown again which was completely unfair considering he already had several inches on Nico. His skin also seemed slightly less tanned than it had in the summer. Nico supposed the sun was out less at the moment, though, so it was only natural.

Will’s hair also seemed a bit longer, falling into his eyes a little more than it had in summer. Nico fought the urge to run his fingers through it. He could do that later. For now, he wanted nothing more than to indeed follow Cecil’s suggestion.

“Holy Hera, I've missed you,” Nico commented as Will continued to look down at Nico with a bemused expression, “now get to my cabin and kiss me, Solace.”

Will didn’t need telling twice. Nico supposed they could properly catch up with words later. Right now, all he wanted was to feel Will’s lips against his own again. He’d missed Will a lot, after all.

Nico didn’t remember to drop by the Aphrodite cabin later that evening. Lacy and Mitchell weren’t exactly surprised, though. They’d suspected Nico might have some more important catching up to do, after all.

* * *

Nico didn’t really want to go to New Rome. Especially now that Will was back, but a promise was a promise and he still really needed help on what to get Will for Christmas. Still, now he could wake up to blond hair tickling his face, curled up in Will’s arms in the Hades cabin again, Nico really didn’t want to leave for a week.

That’s why he did a very stupid thing.

“Will,” he said softly, poking Will’s cheek as an attempt to wake him. It was usually never difficult to get Will up in a morning, especially with his father being the sun god, but with it being winter, it was still too dark outside for Will to have received the memo that it was indeed morning.

“Ten more minutes,” Will groaned in response, rolling over to bury his face in the pillow. Nico resisted the urge to allow his boyfriend those ten more minutes purely because he was adorable in the morning and Nico could stare at him forever. 

“Absolutely not,” Nico forced himself to say, “I need to ask you something.”

“If you want to get married, my answer’s yes,” Will mumbled into the pillow, still not getting up. Nico spluttered and pushed Will off the bed. He had definitely not been about to ask that. Now his heart was racing at a ridiculous pace and the only thought running through his head was an older Will in a tux.

“Nico!” Will complained as he fell onto the floor from Nico’s push.

“Don’t say stuff like that!” Nico justified. Will rolled his eyes and sat cross-legged on the floor, staring up at Nico with a small pout. Nico had never been a morning person but whenever Will was around, he found himself growing to really love them. Not that Will would ever know.

“Do you want to go to Camp Jupiter with me tomorrow?” Nico finally asked. Will’s eyes lit up.

“Yes!” he grinned, “will it be decorated for Christmas? Oh, I’ll finally get to meet your sister properly.”

Nico chuckled at Will’s enthusiasm, ignoring the reprimands from his head that he had no chance of getting a Christmas gift for Will if Will was there.

Still, with Will’s excitement that the two would be together for a week longer than they’d thought, Nico couldn’t bring himself to regret the decision.

Camp Jupiter, just as Will had hoped, was decorated for Christmas. Nico couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of Reyna sat in a throne decorated with tinsel, scowling at the snowflakes on the table next to a grinning Frank wearing a party hat from a cracker.

“Nico!” Hazel exclaimed as soon as she spotted him, throwing her arms around her older brother. Nico hugged her back, relieved that Hazel was still shorter than him. He was pretty sure she was the only person who was. 

“Hey, Nico! Will!” another familiar voice called out. Piper and Jason had been sat with Hazel at Fifth Cohort’s table. Piper ran up to Nico and also threw her arms around him. Luckily for Nico, she hadn’t grown and was still about the same height as him.

The same could not be said for Jason who ruffled Nico’s hair affectionately before pulling him into a bone-crushing hug.

“We missed you, man,” he said, “how have you been?”

Nico glanced back at Will and gave Jason a wry smile.

“Pretty good,” he said, “Camp rebuilding went well. We’re still working on new statues and cabins thanks to your stupid promise.”

Jason rubbed the back of his neck, guiltily.

“Sorry,” he apologised, “you’re looking good from all the building, though!”

Nico heard Will clear his throat behind Nico before his hand intertwined with Nico’s own.

“Jealousy, thy name is Will,” Nico muttered, nudging his boyfriend with his hip.

“Shut up, di Angelo,” Will retorted, pushing Nico back.

“So,” Hazel cooed, “this is the elusive ‘Will Solace’ I’ve been hearing all about.”

“I wasn’t going to bring him,” Nico shrugged, “but he insisted.”

“That is not how it happened at all!” Will replied indignantly, “you asked me because you couldn’t bear being without me for a week.”

“Someone’s developed an ego. That's not what happened,” Nico retorted.

“Please,” Will rolled his eyes, “like you don’t get all sappy in the morning.”

Nico noticed Hazel turn to Piper and Jason with a look of concern on her face. Piper just laughed.

“Don’t worry, they’re always like this. It’s adorable,” she said.

“Will’s helped Nico a lot. Loads more than the rest of us could,” Jason promised. Hazel turned back to her brother and smiled at him.

“Good,” she nodded, “I approve.”

“I don’t need your approval,” Nico grumbled but he was smiling all the same.

“I had to get my siblings’ approval!” Will complained. Nico snorted and turned to Will with a raised eyebrow.

“Kayla approved?” he asked. Will shrugged.

“Not quite. If I remember correctly, and I do, her exact words were ‘For Zeus’s sake, Will, if you don’t stop waxing poetry about Nico's eyes and snog him, I’ll snog him myself!’” he said. Nico snorted with laughter.

“You two need to come and sit at our table instead of just standing in the middle of nowhere,” Hazel decided.

“Yeah, quit flirting where everyone can see and save those eyes for the bedroom,” Piper rolled her eyes with a mischievous grin.

“Piper!” Will, Nico and Jason spluttered indignantly.

“Before you do sit down, though,” Jason added, “I think there’re a couple more people who might be interested in saying hello.”

Nico glanced up to the Praetor’s table where Reyna and Frank were looking in his direction with bemused smirks. Nico let a small smile tug at the corners of his mouth as he pulled Will’s hand in the direction of the Praetors. 

He could already tell this would be the best Christmas of his life.

* * *

Nico’s trip to Camp Jupiter ended far too soon for his liking. Whilst it had been great to catch up with Hazel, Reyna, Frank, Piper, and Jason, he knew he was running out of time to get a gift for Will, especially when Nico spent nearly every waking moment with him.

Lacy and Mitchell were not best pleased when Nico returned.

“Nico, it’s like you don’t want to get him anything,” Lacy huffed, “why did you take him with you?”

“You’re a child of Aphrodite, figure it out,” Nico muttered, his cheeks flushing pink. Mitchell patted him on the back which didn’t really feel all that comforting.

“It’s okay. Have you asked Chiron about going out into town? Maybe you could buy him something there,” he suggested.

“I’d spend hours wandering around not knowing what to do,” Nico pointed out, “plus after the trick I pulled with getting a ‘doctor’s note’ to sit with Will at mealtimes, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t let me go without Will.”

“Why don’t you ask his mom?” Lacy suggested. Nico shook his head. The thought of asking Naomi Solace what he should get for her son was far too embarrassing.

“Oh please,” a voice that had not previously been in the conversation drawled, “just ask Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. They arrived at Camp for Christmas yesterday and they always seem to have the answer to everything.”

Nico whipped his head around to find that the voice had belonged to Drew Tanaka. Nico had never really gotten on with Drew, not that he’d tried, and after Piper’s complaints he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Strangely, Drew’s advice didn’t seem all that bad.

“Um, thanks?” Nico responded awkwardly. Drew shrugged her shoulders and continued filing her nails.

“It’s no biggie,” she said, “I do have some idea about relationships. Percy’s at the Mess Hall if you want to catch him.”

Nico got to his feet.

“Thanks, Lacy, Mitchell. I think it might help to at least ask them,” he agreed. The two Aphrodite kids nodded and Nico made his way to the door.

“Oh, and Nico, sweetie?” Drew added. Nico turned hesitantly towards her again, “don’t break Will’s heart. Gods know we need some good things in our lives.”

Nico nodded his head.

“Right, I won’t.”

Drew’s usual tune was that you had to break a heart. Nico couldn’t help but wonder what exactly had brought about Drew’s change of mind but he wasn’t about to ask. He wondered if it had anything to do with the striped pink flag he’d noticed on her mirror. It looked like something he should recognise but couldn’t put a name to.

Pushing thoughts of the Aphrodite cabin out of his head, Nico approached the Big Three table, occupied only by Percy Jackson, just as Drew had promised.

Nico slid into the seat opposite him.

“How’s college going?” Nico asked. Percy grinned.

“Nico! Good to see you again,” he declared, “college is hard. I feel stupid. Reading just takes so long.”

Nico knew his struggle. Most demigods had dyslexia, Nico included, and reading English was often quite a nightmare.

“You’ve got Annabeth there, though. You can do anything,” Nico promised. Percy smiled.

“I suppose you’re right. How’ve you been?” he asked.

Nico sighed, “I actually came to ask your help on something,” he admitted. Percy leaned closer and raised an eyebrow, motioning for Nico to continue.

“I don’t know what to get Will for Christmas. I don’t want it to be some generic gift but I don’t want it to be too big of a deal because it’s just a Christmas gift and I can’t seem to think of anything in between,” Nico spluttered.

Percy didn’t respond immediately. Instead, his eyes darkened and his eyebrows furrowed. Nico knew why monsters shied away as soon as they met Percy. If the son of Hades hadn’t known him for as long as he had, the look Percy was giving him would have terrified him. Nico often thought Percy didn’t know how intimidating he could look when he was deep in thought. 

His eyes represented a sea in more than just their colour. They could easily become dark and mysterious, a reflection of the terrors Percy himself had witnessed.

“How do you feel about sentimentality?” Percy finally responded, his expression changing in the blink of an eye. 

“Oh, uh, it depends what you’re thinking,” Nico spluttered, having been lost in thought, himself.

“I mean, Will’s helped you to escape the ghosts of your past a lot, right?” Percy asked. Nico nodded. “What about something that showed him how grateful you were for that. Something that means a lot to you and your past.”

“I- don’t really know what you mean,” Nico shook his head in confusion.

“The Hades Statue,” Percy clarified at last. Nico looked at Percy with wide eyes. For a time, Nico had hated the statue. It had been the last gift his sister had ever given him but it was a reminder of the fact that Percy had broken his promise. Now Nico was older, he realised just how much Percy had been trying to tell him that Bianca might not have been safe before they went.

Young Nico wouldn’t listen and so he’d had his heart broken.

Sometimes Nico forgot how intelligent Percy was, especially because he was dating Annabeth. His intelligence wasn’t the same as Annabeth’s analytical, strategic intelligence, though- Percy’s intelligence was impulsive and, in a way Nico didn’t think Percy realised himself, manipulative.

Percy’s suggestion was actually incredible. Will had helped Nico talk about his feelings, something that if Nico had done at the time he found out about Bianca, would have saved a lot of hurt and heartbreak. Will had promised to always be there for Nico just as the statue was a reminder for Nico that Bianca was always watching over him, too, even in death.

Giving the statue to Will would be Nico’s way of telling Will that he truly trusted him. That he wasn’t going to ever leave Will behind. That he wanted Will in his life. Nico’s mind couldn’t help but flicker to the marriage comment Will had made about a week ago. Demigods often died young and many didn’t make it to marriage age. Nico supposed that this was his own sort of promise to Will of ’Til death us do part’, despite how young they both were.

Strangely, it wasn’t an idea that even scared Nico in the slightest.

“Thank you, Percy,” Nico smiled, “that’s actually a really good idea.”

Percy nodded, “glad I could help. Don’t tell Annabeth you came to me first, though- she’ll be salty for weeks.”

Nico grinned, “I suppose I’d better go and say hello to her, too.”

“Hey, Nico,” Percy stopped Nico from standing up by placing a hand on his shoulder, “it’s good to see you so happy.”

Nico nodded, “it’s good to see you alive and uninjured.”

With a small chuckle, Percy released Nico to go and find Annabeth.

* * *

Nico woke up to an empty cabin on Christmas morning (Will’s siblings had forced him to stay at his own cabin so they could open presents) and was surprised to find it feeling chillier than normal.

Nico sleepily dragged himself over to the log fire and started lighting a spark. Before he managed to get it started, though, there was a loud knock on his door. Nico grumbled to himself as he got to his feet and stumbled over to it, hoping it was at least Will.

Much to his disappointment, it was not, in fact, Will. Instead, Percy and Annabeth stood in his doorway.

“Merry Christmas, Nico!” Percy grinned. Annabeth stepped forwards and gave him a hug which Nico awkwardly returned. 

“We brought you gifts. Can we come in?” Annabeth asked as she released Nico. Nico shrugged.

“Yeah, sure. Let me get dressed- I only just got up,” he huffed, excusing himself to the bathroom whilst Percy and Annabeth disposed of their coats.

Nico only realised once he was in the bathroom getting dressed that their coats had been coated in white specs. It didn’t rain in camp unless Mr D and Chiron wanted it to. Nico wondered if perhaps Chiron had allowed it to snow purely because it was Christmas. If so, Nico was sort of looking forward to it. He didn’t really have any memory of snow from before.

When Nico returned, nothing looked different but Percy was smirking and looking as if he’d done something. Nico gave him a wary look as he perched down on his bed, opposite where Annabeth and Percy had sat. He supposed there was nothing he could do even if Percy was up to mischief.

“Here’s your present from me, Nico,” Annabeth announced, placing a cuboidal shaped parcel wrapped in penguin paper in Nico’s lap. He picked it up and smirked at Annabeth. It was so obviously a book.

When he opened it, he was surprised to find that it was a mathematics book.

“I know it seems a bit random,” Annabeth explained, “but I just thought since Percy and I are going to school now that if you ever wanted to do the same, you’d need to learn some basic math and English. Of course, you don’t have to go to school but if you wanted to, I’d be happy to help you study.”

Nico had never really considered going to school before. He’d always thought he’d just stay at Camp. Admittedly, Will’s stories of school and now Annabeth’s gift had him curious. Nico did sort of like the idea of learning new things.

“Thanks, Annabeth,” he said, finding that he genuinely meant it, “that was a really thoughtful gift.”

“Mine’s a little more fun,” Percy added, handing Nico a more oddly shaped parcel, “Jason gave me the idea and I thought it was great.”

Nico warily accepted the parcel. Whatever Percy and Jason had conspired about together automatically made Nico apprehensive.

Still, he opened the parcel and was surprised to find a plushie fall out. Not just any plushie, though- it was an Umbreon plushie. Nico snorted a small laugh at it.

“When I arrived at Camp Jupiter without memories, I’d been carrying around a panda pillow pet,” Percy launched into an explanation, “it really helped with the nightmares. I know it’s a bit silly but we all need something a little daft in our lives.”

Nico smiled down at the Umbreon. For some reason, the rings of yellow on its coat reminded him of Will.

“It’s really great, Percy. Thank you,” he replied. Percy smiled contentedly as Nico reached over onto his bedside table and grabbed the two parcels for Percy and Annabeth. He hadn’t bought Christmas gifts for many people but he’d already delivered most of them when in New Rome. Percy, Annabeth and Will were the only people he had gifts left for.

“I know it’s not much,” Nico shrugged, “but Merry Christmas or whatever.”

To his surprise, Annabeth grinned down at the owl patterned scarf and Percy was laughing at his pack of Blackjack sweets, the Poseidon mythomagic statue held in his other hand.

“Oh, Blackjack is gonna love these and the statue was actually really thoughtful of you,” Percy said with a pointed look, “thanks, man.”

Nico shrugged again. He’d never been great at giving gifts but Annabeth and Percy didn’t seem too disappointed.

“This is really lovely,” Annabeth smiled, “I must say, considering your cabin interior design I didn’t trust your sense of style too much but you’ve redeemed yourself.”

“Don’t mention the cabin,” Nico rolled his eyes, huffing a laugh all the same. Percy and Annabeth looked into each other’s eyes for a second before they engulfed Nico in a hug.

“Have a good Christmas, Nico. We’ll see you later, yeah?” Percy checked. Nico nodded.

“Yeah. It’s snowing out there, right? I want to see what that’s like,” he admitted. Annabeth’s grey eyes sparkled.

“We’re having a snowball fight,” she declared.

“Woah, Wise Girl, I don’t want to die today,” Percy stuttered.

“Tough,” Annabeth smirked and before Nico could ask what was going on, Annabeth had grabbed Percy’s hand and dragged the two of them out of his cabin.

As the door was flung open, though, another face was revealed in the entrance.

“Do I even want to know?” Will Solace asked. Nico rolled his eyes and walked over to the door with a smile on his face.

“Probably not,” he admitted. Will was dressed in a large navy coat, his blond hair hidden by a ridiculous red bobble hat. Nico thought he looked adorable.

Nico was about to open his mouth to wish Will a Merry Christmas when Will’s eyes wandered up to the doorframe. Nico raised an eyebrow and lifted his gaze too, his mouth falling open when he noticed what was there.

A sprig of mistletoe was hanging from his doorframe.

“Wow, Nico, who knew the holiday spirit would turn you into such a flirt?” Will smirked. Nico furrowed his eyebrows.

“Wait, it wasn’t you who put it there?” he asked. Will shook his head.

“It wasn’t you either?” he asked. Nico shook his head when realisation dawned on him as to why Percy had looked so smug earlier.

“Jackson,” Nico hissed. Will laughed and stepped closer, wrapping an arm around Nico’s waist. His coat was cold from being outside and Nico shivered at the contact, not wearing more than a grey knitted jumper.

“I hope you don’t intend to ignore Christmas tradition,” Will whispered, his breath forming visible vapour right in front of Nico’s own mouth.

“Of course not,” Nico muttered, bringing his arms up to clutch the edge of the ruff on Will’s hood. He tugged the son of Apollo forward slightly and connected their lips, surprised at the warmth of Will’s considering the cold air around them.

Will gave a soft hum as he melted against Nico’s warmth, sending a warm trickle of affection through Nico’s own chest. Nico leaned up into the kiss when a whooping sound behind Will caused him to immediately pull back.

“Percy!” Nico yelled as he caught the sight of dark hair hidden behind one of the trees behind Nico’s cabin.

“Is that Annabeth’s phone in his hand?” Will murmured quietly to Nico. Nico glared at Percy before grabbing Will’s hand and tugging him into the cabin.

“I’m ignoring them. Get in here,” he ordered. Will chuckled and closed the door behind him.

“Wow, eager much,” he smirked. Nico glared at him too.

“Shut up before I kick you out, Solace. I just want to give you your Christmas present,” he rolled his eyes. Will chuckled again before peeling off his coat and hat, revealing a ridiculous Christmas jumper underneath, covered in cartoon reindeers. Nico snorted at the design.

“You’re such a dork,” he said.

“At least I don’t dress like the Grinch personally designed my Christmas jumper,” Will retorted. Nico furrowed his eyebrows.

“Who?”

“I forget you weren’t born in this generation. You’ve missed so much, di Angelo,” Will sighed, flopping down on Nico’s bed way more dramatically than was necessary.

“I doubt that,” Nico commented as he grabbed Will’s present and shuffled up to Will on his bed, hoping the son of Apollo would keep him warm. He’d grown quite cold thanks to the prolonged opening of his door, “Merry Christmas,” he added, handing the gift to Will.

Will looked at it curiously with a smile on his face. Nico wondered if Will could hear how loudly his heart was thumping against his chest. He didn’t think he’d ever been so nervous about giving someone a gift before.

“Nico,” Will gasped softly, “is this-“

“I know it’s probably a stupid idea,” Nico blushed, “but I wanted you to have it. You’ve helped me to move on from the darkness I carried with me after Bianca’s death so much and I wanted to give you something to show you how grateful I was for that. It’s a silly gift. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea after all-“

Nico was cut off from his fast ramble by a pair of warm lips briefly pressing against his. Nico noticed that Will had tears in his eyes when he drew away.

“I love it,” Will said, “and it isn’t silly or stupid or anything. I understand how important this statue is to you and the fact that you would give it me,” Will choked up for a second, “it means so much. Nico, I really love you.”

“I know,” Nico smiled as Will clutched the statue against his chest and buried his face in Nico’s neck. Nico could feel the dampness of Will’s tears against his neck. “I love you too.”

The two remained there for a moment or two, quietly enjoying the other’s company before Will sat up abruptly.

“I need to give you your gift,” he realised before thrusting a parcel towards Nico, “I don’t think I could ever top your gift but I tried.”

The present was quite bulky but didn’t feel overly heavy. Intrigued, Nico tore into the wrapping paper.

Inside the paper sat a black fur-lined corduroy jacket. Nico smiled at it. It was just his kind of thing.

“Open it out,” Will leaned over to whisper in Nico’s ear. Nico heeded his advice and laughed out loud when he spotted the sun stitched onto the top pocket.

“I wanted to sew the patch slightly more to the right so that it would be closer to where your actual heart lies but Austin told me that was stupid and most people think the heart is further to the left anyway so you wouldn’t mind,” Will started to ramble. Nico laughed again and leaned his head on Will’s shoulder.

“You’re such a medical dork,” he snickered, “you really sewed this on yourself?”

Will nodded, “I’ve got the band-aids to prove it,” he said, wiggling his fingers to show Nico. Nico noticed that there were, indeed, three band-aids plastered over the ends of his fingers.

“I love it,” Nico said, “thank you.”

Will gave Nico a watery smile before swooping down and kissing him quickly yet again.

“What do you think about going outside and joining Percy and Annabeth’s snowball fight?” Will suggested. Nico’s eyes lit up at the suggestion.

“You’re on, Solace,” he smirked, tugging on his new jacket to race his boyfriend to the door. 

When Nico returned to his cabin half an hour later, dripping wet with residual snow and dragging an equally as soaked Will into the Hades cabin with him, kissing him fiercely as soon as the door was closed, Nico couldn’t help but think that it had to be his best Christmas so far.

* * *

All the other campers that had returned for Christmas were back at school by the start of February. Will, however, had happily informed Nico that he was actually staying until March as the cold winds of late winter and early spring tended to bring about the most climbing wall and canoe lake injuries.

That’s when the disappearances started. Nico tried to ignore them- he could still sense their auras and knew they weren’t dead, but any attempts of searching for them had failed. Will was at least reassured to hear they were alive, even if Nico could tell he was blaming himself for somehow not being able to take care of them.

Nico didn’t know why Will felt the need to take responsibility for anything that could be slightly related to his healing so he advised the son of Apollo to take a day away from the infirmary to actually relax for once. He hadn’t quite expected their peaceful afternoon to be interrupted by Kayla knocking at the Hades cabin door.

“Will, are you in there?” she yelled. Nico rolled his eyes. Way to greet the owner of the cabin first.

“I’ll tell her to get lost,” Nico assured Will as he stood up from the bed they had been playing Pokémon on and opened the cabin door.

“Can’t it wait, Kayla? Will’s on his break from infirmary duties,” Nico asked. Kayla’s face looked exceptionally pale, though and the worried look in her eyes had Nico anxious that it really wasn’t something that could wait.

“I don’t think it can. There’s been… an incident,” she muttered, chewing her lip.

Nico turned around and shrugged his shoulders at Will who mustered a smile and came to join the pair at the door.

“Well, what am waiting for? Let’s see what’s happened now,” he said cheerily before turning to Nico. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised kissing Nico’s cheek. He turned around so that Kayla wouldn’t see his blush.

“Yeah, good luck,” Nico muttered as the two children of Apollo left his cabin.

It was about an hour until Will returned, bringing news Nico was certainly not ready for. Apollo was at Camp Half-Blood. And he was mortal.

When Will brought Nico to visit him, he also discovered that Apollo happened to be surrounded by a strong aura of death.

Nico voiced his concerns aloud and Will scolded him, elbowing him gently in the side.

“I apologise for my boyfriend,” he said as Nico’s cheeks flushed red. That was Will’s father and he had just announced they were dating to him like it was no big deal.

“Could you not,” Nico complained. Will’s grin only grew.

“Would you prefer ‘Special guy’ or ‘Significant Other’?” he teased. Nico huffed.

“Significant annoyance in your case,” he grumbled. He didn’t get the chance to argue more as Chiron drew their attention back to the unfortunately more pressing issue. Apollo was at Camp Halfblood. Mortal. And apparently bound to some demigod named Meg who was already causing havoc. Nico suspected she’d fit in well.

Still, with the disappearances followed by Apollo’s arrival, Nico was getting slightly concerned about their safety. He really didn’t feel like fighting in another war, especially when he’d just started to settle into Camp.

When Will and Nico were excused from the conversation, Nico dragged Will to their favourite spot amongst the trees behind the Hades cabin.

“So,” he started, “your dad’s at Camp. How do you feel?”

Nico knew Will sometimes got mad at his father. Pretty much every halfblood got mad at their godly parent at least once a month and despite Nico’s frequent visits to the Underworld to see his father, he himself was no exception.

“Confused,” Will sighed, “scared. Slightly angry?”

“That’s understandable. I’d be furious if it were me. Your dad shows no sign of even being alive since summer and suddenly he shows up at Camp and begs for our help,” Nico agreed. Will nodded and placed his hand over Nico’s on the ground.

“I want to be really mad at Apollo. The thing is, I know I’m going to help him. I can’t not help him. He’s my father, after all, and I just want to be able to heal everyone anyway,” Will exclaimed, an expression of frustration growing on his face, “I just want to tell him to help himself for once, though. When was he ever there for me when I needed his assistance? Where was he when I cried myself to sleep at night, wishing I had archery skill or musical ability or something other than lousy healing?”

“Hey,” Nico said softly, “your healing is anything but lousy and nearly everyone here at Camp owes you their life at least once. I know exactly why you’re mad but I also think we should help him, too. I mean, if the fate of the world ends up lying on Apollo in mortal form, we’re pretty much screwed.”

Will huffed a laugh and squeezed Nico’s hand a bit tighter.

“And for what it’s worth,” Nico continued, “I think you’re the strongest Apollo camper there is. You’re the best healer Camp has seen in years, you have one of the fiercest and yet most caring personalities I’ve ever known, your sword fighting has improved so much lately and I’m pretty sure I’ve literally seen you emit sunlight when sparring before now.”

“That last one’s a lie,” Will snorted, nudging his shoulder into Nico. Nico smirked back.

“Don’t believe me, then,” he shrugged, “don’t think you haven’t been blessed by Apollo, though. You really have. And if not, then I guess we can place responsibility for your awesomeness on your mom.”

“She also takes credit for my ‘devilishly handsome looks’,” Will added with a grin. Nico rolled his eyes and laughed, leaning into Will’s side.

“She’s not wrong,” he commented. Will didn’t respond, simply smiling as he wrapped an arm around Nico’s back and leaned against the tree behind him to support both of their weights.

“I feel like the world’s about to end again,” Nico admitted quietly. Apollo’s return had sent Nico into a quiet panic since he first saw him. 

“I know,” Will agreed, “but do you know what’s different this time?”

Nico shifted himself in Will’s grasp to look up at him.

“What?” he asked.

“We have each other,” Will said. Nico snorted a laugh.

“You’re so cheesy,” he complained.

“You love it,” Will shrugged, “Hey, even if I die, at least you can come and visit me in the Underworld.”

“Don’t even joke about it,” Nico warned, “besides, it doesn’t work like that and you’re not going to die.”

“How can you be so sure?” Will teased, although Nico noted the slightly more serious undertone to it.

“Because,” Nico began, connecting his eyes with Will’s, “I’ll be there to fight and protect you.”

Nico was pretty sure if he hadn’t had a theory that Will emitted sunlight before then, the beaming smile that lit up Will’s face at his comment would have confirmed it.

“Good job I’ll always be there to heal you if you get injured,” Will promised quietly, sending a rush of warmth through Nico’s own face.

As Nico tilted his head up to slot their lips together, he couldn’t help but smile. Never had he imagined he might find someone that balanced him out as perfectly as Will Solace did. 

For the first time, Nico held hope for just what his future would hold after the battle. With Will by his side, it couldn’t be anything but bright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end!!! Well, not quite- I'm writing an epilogue for the Myriad of Solangelo series that will almost definitely make me emotional to finish. Writing these two has meant a lot to me and I don't want to ever see it come to an end, even though it must. This series has truly reignited my love for Percy Jackson.
> 
> Thank you for being here with me on this journey through Will and Nico's relationship. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it!

**Author's Note:**

> Trilogy to 'A Myriad of Stars' and 'Not-So-Secretly in Love'. I'll post a little epilogue after this is finished but this will be the last part of the main plotline


End file.
